Different versions

"Ten Little N******" (the old days before all of the injected disgraceful PC garbage we have to endure now) is my favourite Agatha Christie's novel since I first read it as a schoolboy. I have seen every film adaptation made to date, and although the Russian one is the most faithful to the book this 1974 version discussed here is the one I enjoy most for its cast alone despite of its plot holes big enough to swallow a Sherman tank.
A lot of people have enquired about the extended Spanish speaking version. I have seen it, and the dubbing is awful and the extra scenes really don't add up anything worth to the plot. They are about a strange couple (Rik Battaglia, the pilot of the helicopter, and his missus Teresa Gimpera) who are out to buy the remaining of the Indian figures as not to leave any traces of Mr Owen's purchase. The other fellow in the cast with an unpronounceable Arabic name is a police inspector who sees the party of guests first arriving in Teheran airport and finds it unusual that such a large number of foreigners should all gather for the same destination at that time of the year. It's winter and therefore totally out of the tourist season in Iran. So he smells a rat, and begins to investigate. He eventually identifies the helicopter pilot as a dodgy Charlie well known to the Iranian police, and from then on has him under constant surveillance. The pilot and his missus comb down all bazaars in Teheran in search for every China figure of an Indian identical to the ones in the hotel... and this is the most ridiculous thing in the plot. Why didn't Owen just buy all of them when he bought the other ten, and then destroyed the ones he didn't need? Why hiring someone else to clean the *beep* after him? It is a ridiculous subplot made up for the only purpose of filling more screen time and having three actors who appear for no more than ten minutes in all. And these four or five sequences which are intercut with the scenes at the hotel do nothing but interrupt the main plotline and diminish the suspense.
For my money I take the 98 minute English speaking version with its single plotline and no gratuitous distractions.