Movie Review - Murder on the Orient Express 


Produced by:
	EMI Films Ltd.
	John Brabourne
	Richard N. Goodwin

Directed by
	Sidney Lumet

Cast
       Albert Finney			Hercule Poirot
       Lauren Bacall			Mrs. Hubbard
       Martin Balsam			Bianchi
       Ingrid Bergman			Greta
       Jacqueline Bisset		Countess Andrenyi
       Jean-Pierre Cassel		Pierre Paul Michelle
       Sean Connery			Colonel Arbuthnot
       John Gielgud			Beddoes
       Wendy Hiller			Princess Dragomiroff
       Anthony Perkins			Hector MacQueen
       Vanessa Redgrave			Mary Debenham
       Rachel Roberts			Hildegarde Schmidt
       Richard Widmark			Ratchett
       Michael York			Count Andrenyi
       Colin Blakely			Dick Hardman
       George Coulouris			Dr. Constantine
       Dennis Quilley			Foscarelli
       Vernon Dobtcheff			Concierge
       Jeremy Lloyd			A.D.C.
       John Moffatt			Chief Attendant

Written by
	Agatha Christie	(novel)
	Paul Dehn

Awards -

Won:
Best Supporting Actress -	Ingrid Bergman

Nominated:
Best Actor -			Albert Finney
Best Cinematography -		Geoffrey Unsworth
Best Costume Design -		Tony Walton
Best Music,
  Original Dramatic Score -	Richard Rodney Bennett
Best Writing, Screenplay
  Adapted From Other Material -	Paul Dehn
Murder on the Orient Express is a murder mystery written by Agatha Christie. This adaption of the book tells the story of detective Poirot, who happens to be on the Orient Express during a murder. The train is snowbound, giving Poirot time to find that the murdered person is the kidnapper and killer of Daisy Armstrong. The case of Daisy Armstrong is an echo of Lindenberg child. Poirot than begins to interrogate the passengers, and comes up with the surprising solution to the murder. Murder on the Orient Express is one of Christie's more famous novels, and the adaption follows the book closely.

Murder on the Orient Express is not a movie for people who want explosions and non-stop heart-pounding action. Nor is it a movie for romantic diehards. It is a movie that intrigues, and makes you wonder what is really going on. The all-star cast performs the very well, and you'll never guess the ending.

Murder on the Orient Express does not however take your interest right at the beginning. It's take a while for anything to really happen. A good ten to fifteen minutes of the movie is telling us why Poirot is on the Orient Express, which isn't really vital to the plot. Even once on the Express, it takes a while for the murder to occur. At that point, the plot gets much more interesting, but still doesn't move as one would expect from an action or drama flick.

Instead it moves into the systematic interrogation of the passengers, who all tell their stories. Deciding which to believe, and which to ignore is what makes the movie interesting. Through each person's dialogue, you get glimpses of clues and motives, but nothing definite. You try to formulate your own hypothesis. Still you can't deduce what Poirot deduces, nor make sense of the other things that don't fit your thoughts. At end of the movie, you may think you've figured it all out, and you know who did it. But you find yourself wrong, as Poirot shows you all the points you have missed. Then he throws it all together, and makes sense of it all. Of course there are things obvious to the viewer and not to Poirot. It's almost immediately known who will be killed and who he really is. This is due to the way the introductory material to the Daisy Armstrong case is presented. The audience knows it important because other is wouldn't be presented, and therefore connections are readily apparent to the audience and not the characters. Then film techniques such as panning and zooming give away some of the characters' personalities. This can give away things that shouldn't be easily seen, making Poirot's deductive abilities seem diminished.

However, in the end, Poirot's shows himself to be a brilliant detective. If you don't mind waiting for the movie to start up, and enjoying thinking for yourself every once in a while, you willenjoy Murder on the Orient Express. If not, there are a million action flicks you could watch.


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