Murder on the Orient Express (1974 film)
Murder on the Orient Express | |
---|---|
![]() Original British quad format film poster | |
Directed by | Sidney Lumet |
Screenplay by | Paul Dehn |
Based on | Murder on the Orient Express 1934 novel by Agatha Christie |
Produced by | John Brabourne Richard Goodwin |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
Edited by | Anne V. Coates |
Music by | Richard Rodney Bennett |
Production companies | G.W. Films Limited EMI Films |
Distributed by | Anglo-EMI Film Distributors |
Release date |
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Running time | 128 minutes[1] |
Country | United Kingdom[2] |
Language | English |
Budget | £554,100 ($1.4 million)[3][dubious – discuss] |
Box office | $37.7 million[4] |
Murder on the Orient Express is a 1974 British mystery film directed by Sidney Lumet, produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, and based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.
The film features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), who is asked to investigate the murder of an American business tycoon aboard the Orient Express train. The suspects are portrayed by an all-star cast, including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, Rachel Roberts, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins, Richard Widmark and Wendy Hiller. The screenplay is by Paul Dehn.
The film was a commercial and critical success. Bergman won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the film received five other nominations at the 47th Academy Awards: Best Actor (Finney), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design.
Plot
[edit]The film's opening shows news clippings of the 1930 kidnapping and murder of Daisy Armstrong, the toddler daughter of wealthy British Army Colonel Hamish Armstrong and his wife, Sonia.
In December 1935, famed detective Hercule Poirot travels from Istanbul to London on the Orient Express. His old friend, Signor Bianchi, a director of the company that owns the rail line, arranges Poirot's accommodation after all the first-class compartments are uncharacteristically sold out during the off-season. Other passengers include widowed American socialite Harriet Belinda Hubbard; English governess Mary Debenham; Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson; American expatriate Paris-based businessman Samuel Ratchett, who is accompanied by his secretary/translator Hector McQueen and English valet Edward Beddoes; Italian-American car salesman Antonio "Gino" Foscarelli; elderly Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her German maid, Hildegarde Schmidt; Hungarian Count Rudolf Andrenyi and his wife Elena; British Indian Army Colonel John Arbuthnott; and American theatrical agent Cyrus Hardman.
The day after the train's departure, Ratchett tries to hire Poirot as a bodyguard as he has been receiving written death threats; Poirot declines, finding Ratchett's case uninteresting. That night when the train stops in Belgrade, Bianchi gives Poirot his compartment and shares a coach with Greek physician Stavros Constantine. A snowdrift between Vinkovci and Brod in Yugoslavia strands the train until snow is cleared from the tracks. During the night, Poirot is awakened by a loud moan from Ratchett's compartment, which is next to his. The night conductor, Pierre Michel, is told through the door that it was merely a nightmare. However, Ratchett is found dead the next morning. Dr. Constantine ascertains that Ratchett had been stabbed twelve times.
Poirot investigates, finding a charred letter fragment that ultimately reveals Ratchett's true identity: gangster Lanfranco Cassetti. Five years earlier, Cassetti planned Daisy Armstrong's kidnapping and murder. Cassetti betrayed his accomplice and fled the country with the ransom money. Shortly afterwards, the distraught Mrs. Armstrong died giving premature birth to a stillborn baby. Colonel Armstrong, grief-stricken, committed suicide. The French maidservant Paulette, wrongly suspected of complicity in the kidnapping, also committed suicide before being found innocent.
Poirot finds a superabundance of clues, including a pipe cleaner, an expensive handkerchief with the initial "H", Cassetti's broken watch, and a conductor's uniform button. Poirot establishes that Cassetti was murdered at about 01:15 hours, the time shown on the smashed watch and when the moaning was heard. As the sleeping car was isolated through the night, the murderer must be among the car's passengers, or possibly the train conductor, Pierre Michel. Mrs. Hubbard reports that a man had been in her compartment; a bloodied knife is found there. Foscarelli believes Cassetti's murder was due to a Mafia feud.
Poirot interviews Pierre and the passengers individually. He learns McQueen is the son of the District Attorney in the Armstrong case and knew Mrs. Armstrong; Beddoes was a British Army batman; Greta Ohlsson, who speaks limited English, has been to America; Countess Andrenyi is of German descent with maiden name Grünwald (German for "Greenwood", Mrs. Armstrong's first married name); Conductor Pierre's daughter died five years earlier of scarlet fever; Colonel Arbuthnott has knowledge of Armstrong's military decorations and reveals he and Miss Debenham will marry once the divorce from his philandering wife is finalised. Poirot questions Princess Dragomiroff and discovers she was a friend of Linda Arden, Mrs. Armstrong's mother, a retired American actress; the Princess was Sonia's godmother. He also learns that the Armstrong household had a butler, a secretary, a cook, a chauffeur, and a nursemaid. Poirot flatters the Princess's maid, Schmidt, who reveals she had been a cook. Foscarelli denies having been a chauffeur. Hardman reveals he actually is a Pinkerton detective hired as Cassetti's bodyguard. When Poirot shows him Paulette's photo, he is visibly shaken.
Poirot assembles the suspects and describes two solutions to the murder. The first suggests Cassetti's murder was a Mafia revenge killing - an unknown man disguised as a conductor stabbed Cassetti, discarded the uniform, then escaped from the train through the snow. Bianchi and Dr. Constantine reject this scenario as absurd, but Poirot tells them they may later reconsider that opinion.
The second solution links together all the suspects. In addition to the self-incriminating revelations Poirot extracted from Hardman, McQueen, Schmidt, and the Princess, the detective has deduced that Countess Elena is actually Mrs. Armstrong's younger sister, Helena. Mary Debenham was the Armstrongs' secretary. Beddoes was the Armstrongs' butler; Ohlsson was Daisy's nursemaid; Colonel Arbuthnott was Armstrong's close friend; Foscarelli was the family's chauffeur; Pierre was Paulette's father; Hardman is a former policeman who was in love with Paulette; and Mrs. Hubbard is Linda Arden, Mrs. Armstrong's mother. McQueen drugged Cassetti, rendering him unconscious and allowing the conspirators to execute him jointly, with a total of 12 stab wounds to the chest. The suspects killed Cassetti after 02:00 hours while Poirot was asleep. The moan and broken watch were provided by McQueen to convince Poirot that the murder occurred earlier, when the other suspects would have alibis. (There are 12 wounds because the Andrenyis stabbed Casseti together.)
Poirot asks Bianchi to choose one solution before the train is freed from the snowdrift, saying the Yugoslavian police will probably prefer the simpler one. Bianchi, in sympathy with the suspects, proposes the first scenario. Dr. Constantine and Poirot concur, although Poirot struggles with his conscience. The train is freed and resumes its journey.
Cast
[edit]- Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot
- Lauren Bacall as Mrs. Hubbard/Linda Arden
- Martin Balsam as Bianchi
- Ingrid Bergman as Greta Ohlsson
- Jacqueline Bisset as Countess Helena Andrenyi
- Jean-Pierre Cassel as Pierre Paul Michel
- Sean Connery as Colonel John Arbuthnott
- John Gielgud as Edward Beddoes
- Wendy Hiller as Princess Natalia Dragomiroff
- Anthony Perkins as Hector McQueen
- Vanessa Redgrave as Mary Debenham
- Rachel Roberts as Hildegarde Schmidt
- Richard Widmark as Ratchett/Lanfranco Cassetti
- Michael York as Count Rudolf Andrenyi
- Colin Blakely as Cyrus B. Hardman
- George Coulouris as Dr. Constantine
- Denis Quilley as Antonio Foscarelli
- Vernon Dobtcheff as Concierge
- Jeremy Lloyd as A.D.C.
- John Moffatt as Chief Attendant
Production
[edit]Development
[edit]Dame Agatha Christie had been quite displeased with some film adaptations of her works made in the 1960s, and accordingly was unwilling to sell any more film rights. When Nat Cohen, chairman of EMI Films, and producer John Brabourne attempted to get her approval for this film, they felt it necessary to have Lord Mountbatten of Burma (of the British royal family and also Brabourne's father-in-law) help them broach the subject. In the end, according to Christie's husband, Sir Max Mallowan, "Agatha herself has always been allergic to the adaptation of her books by the cinema, but was persuaded to give a rather grudging appreciation to this one." According to one report, Christie gave approval because she liked the previous films of the producers, Romeo and Juliet and Tales of Beatrix Potter.[5]
Casting
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0a/Ingrid_Bergman_Holding_Oscar.jpg/220px-Ingrid_Bergman_Holding_Oscar.jpg)
Christie's biographer Gwen Robyns quoted her as saying, "It was well made except for one mistake. It was Albert Finney, as my detective Hercule Poirot. I wrote that he had the finest mustache in England — but he didn't in the film. I thought that a pity—why shouldn't he?"[6]
Cast members eagerly accepted upon first being approached. Lumet went to Sean Connery first, who admitted that he had been "stupidly flattered" by Lumet saying that if you get the biggest star, the rest will come along. Bergman was initially offered the role of Princess Dragomiroff, but instead requested to play Greta Ohlsson. Lumet said:
She had chosen a small part, and I couldn't persuade her to change her mind. She was sweetly stubborn. But stubborn she was ... Since her part was so small, I decided to film her one big scene, where she talks for almost five minutes, straight, all in one long take. A lot of actresses would have hesitated over that. She loved the idea and made the most of it. She ran the gamut of emotions. I've never seen anything like it.[7]: 246–247
Bergman won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the portrayal.
The entire budget was provided by EMI. The cost of the cast came to £554,100.[3][dubious – discuss]
Filming
[edit]Unsworth shot the film with Panavision cameras. Interiors were filmed at Elstree Studios. Exterior shooting was mostly done in France in 1973, with a railway workshop near Paris standing in for Istanbul station. The scenes of the train proceeding through Central Europe were filmed in the Jura Mountains on the then-recently-closed railway line from Pontarlier to Gilley, with the scenes of the train stuck in snow being filmed in a cutting near Montbenoît.[8] There were concerns about a lack of snow in the weeks preceding the scheduled shooting of the snowbound train, and plans were made to truck in large quantities of snow at considerable expense. However, heavy snowfall the night before the shooting made the extra snow unnecessary—just as well, as the snow-laden backup trucks had themselves become stuck in the snow.[9]
Music
[edit]Richard Rodney Bennett's Orient Express theme has been reworked into an orchestral suite and performed and recorded several times. It was performed on the original soundtrack album by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden under Marcus Dods. The piano soloist was the composer himself.
Reception
[edit]Box office
[edit]Murder on the Orient Express was released theatrically in the UK on 24 November 1974. The film was a success at the box office, given its tight budget of $1.4 million,[10] earning $36 million in North America,[10][11] making it the 11th highest-grossing film of 1974. Nat Cohen claimed it was the first film completely financed by a British company to make the top of the weekly US box office charts in Variety.[12]
Critical response
[edit]On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 42 reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "Murder, intrigue, and a star-studded cast make this stylish production of Murder on the Orient Express one of the best Agatha Christie adaptations to see the silver screen."[13] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[14]
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, writing that it "provides a good time, high style, a loving salute to an earlier period of filmmaking".[15] The New York Times's chief critic of the era, Vincent Canby, wrote
[...] had Dame Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express been made into a movie 40 years ago (when it was published here as Murder on the Calais Coach), it would have been photographed in black-and-white on a back lot in Burbank or Culver City, with one or two stars and a dozen character actors and studio contract players. Its running time would have been around 67 minutes and it could have been a very respectable B-picture. Murder on the Orient Express wasn't made into a movie 40 years ago, and after you see the Sidney Lumet production that opened yesterday at the Coronet, you may be both surprised and glad it wasn't. An earlier adaptation could have interfered with plans to produce this terrifically entertaining super-valentine to a kind of whodunit that may well be one of the last fixed points in our inflationary universe.[16]
Agatha Christie
[edit]Christie, who died fourteen months after the release of the film, stated that Murder on the Orient Express and Witness for the Prosecution were the only movie adaptations of her books that she liked although she expressed disappointment with Poirot (Finney)'s moustache, which was far from the fabulous hirsute creation she had detailed in her mysteries.[5]
Awards and nominations
[edit]See also
[edit]- "Murder on the Orient Express" (2010) episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot
- Murder on the Orient Express (2017 film), directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh
References
[edit]- ^ AFI Murder on the Orient Express Archived 29 November 2020 at the Wayback Machine; retrieved 27 April 2020.
- ^ "LUMIERE : Film #61364 : Murder on the Orient Express". Archived from the original on 24 October 2019. Retrieved 18 November 2019.
- ^ a b Bell, Brian, "Can film-makers Carry On?", The Observer, 11 August 1974: 11.
- ^ "Boost for studios", The Guardian, 9 July 1975: 5.
- ^ a b Mills, Nancy. The case of the vanishing mystery writer: Christie liked only two of the 19 movies made from her books. Chicago Tribune, 30 October 1977: h44.
- ^ Sanders, Dennis and Len Lovallo. The Agatha Christie Companion: The Complete Guide to Agatha Christie's Life and Work, (1984), pgs. 438–441. Subscription required ISBN 978-0425118450
- ^ Chandler, Charlotte (20 February 2007). Ingrid: Ingrid Bergman, A Personal Biography. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 19, 21, 294. ISBN 978-1416539148.
- ^ Trains Oubliés Vol.2: Le PLM by José Banaudo, p. 54 (French). Editions du Cabri, Menton, France
- ^ DVD documentary "Making Murder on the Orient Express: The Ride"
- ^ a b Alexander Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, Harrap, 1985 p. 130
- ^ "Murder on the Orient Express, Box Office Information". The Numbers. Archived from the original on 13 April 2012. Retrieved 5 January 2012.
- ^ "Murder on the Orient Express' tops US charts". The Times. London. 11 February 1975. p. 7.
- ^ Movie Reviews for Murder on the Orient Express Archived 15 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
- ^ "Murder on the Orient Express". Metacritic.
- ^ Roger Ebert reviews Murder on the Orient Express. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
- ^ Canby, Vincent (25 November 1974). "Crack 'Orient Express' Clicks as Film". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 1 July 2016. Retrieved 1 June 2016.
External links
[edit]![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fa/Wikiquote-logo.svg/34px-Wikiquote-logo.svg.png)
- 1974 films
- 1974 crime drama films
- 1974 independent films
- 1970s mystery films
- British crime drama films
- British independent films
- British mystery films
- British detective films
- EMI Films films
- 1970s English-language films
- Films about murder
- Films based on crime novels
- Films based on Hercule Poirot books
- Films based on works by Agatha Christie
- Films directed by Sidney Lumet
- Films featuring a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award-winning performance
- Films scored by Richard Rodney Bennett
- Films set in 1930
- Films set in 1935
- Films set in Istanbul
- Films set in Yugoslavia
- Films set in Belgrade
- Films set on the Orient Express
- Films set on trains
- Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios
- Films shot in England
- Films shot in France
- Films shot in Turkey
- Films with screenplays by Paul Dehn
- Paramount Pictures films
- Fiction about child murder
- 1970s British films
- Murder mystery films
- Murder on the Orient Express
- Films produced by John Knatchbull, 7th Baron Brabourne
- Films produced by Richard Goodwin (producer)
- Lord Mountbatten