With a new version ready to hit theatres, I wanted to go back and visit the 1974 big budget, all-star cast version of Agatha Christie's MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS.
A big box office hit and loaded with talent in front of and behind the cameras, it's an old fashioned mystery at its best, told at a slow pace unfamiliar to today's audiences.
Albert Finney is almost unrecognizable as famed detective Hercule Poirot, aboard the Orient Express first class car and conveniently located in the next cabin to a murder.
Richard Widmark is a rich businessman, Sean Connery is a Colonel in love with Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York and Jacqueline Bisset are aristocratic royalty, John Gielgud is the perfect butler, Lauren Bacall is a brash American widow and Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for her performance as a pious passenger. Watch for her interrogation scene with Poirot that was filmed in one five minute take with great sparring between the two.
Oh wait, there's more. Anthony Perkins is a stuttering assistant, Wendy Hiller is an elderly countess with a selective memory and Rachel Roberts is a German assistant.....well you get the idea.
The fun is watching Finney as Poirot, all Ken-doll shiny hair, twirly mustache and detailed observation as he weeds through the suspects toward the truth.
Screenwriter Paul Dehn (Goldfinger, Escape from the Planet of the Apes) packs the dialogue with clues and humor, giving each passenger their own voice and style. Watching John Gielgud (Arthur) wrap his delivery around Dehn's cutting words is a lot of fun.
Director Sidney Lumet (Serpico, Network, Dog Day Afternoon) is in great form, introducing you to the characters methodically and dropping many clues throughout without tipping his hand.
For a train-bound mystery, there is plenty of great photography of Turkey and Europe and our snowbound train by Geoffrey Unsworth (2001, Superman) and half the budget seems to have been spent on costumes by Tony Walton (The Wiz, Equus).
The music score by Richard Rodney Bennett is old school and perfect throughout, full on 1930's wealth mixed with moody sequences during the death & mayhem.
By the time Finney asks the entire cast to join him in the dining car and then walks them and us through a complete recreation (or two..) of the murder, you know you're in the hands of many masters. His denouncement is 27 minutes long and perfectly executed.
THE ORIENT EXPRESS is a first class ticket that unwraps an A.
Remade in 2017 with Kenneth Branaugh in the Director's chair and starring as our Belgian sleuth.
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