The 1974 Sidney Lumet-directed production of Murder on the Orient Express is one of the finest mystery films ever made.
The Production: 5/5
Before Sidney Lumet’s scintillating 1974 adaptation of Agatha Christie’s masterpiece Murder on the Orient Express, there had been various Christie adaptations which had run the gamut from excellent (Witness for the Prosecution, And Then There Were None) to merely entertaining (Murder, She Said, Ten Little Indians) to abysmal (The Alphabet Murders). All were rather modest productions, though, filmed in black and white and with, at best, solid success without ever being blockbusters. Murder on the Orient Express changed the entire game for Agatha Christie adaptations. Here was a classy production shot in color with an all-star international cast, and the results were staggering: it became in its day the highest grossing English film production in history, and it earned prizes both in England and in America. Never again would Agatha Christie properties be considered anything less than blue chip, genuine articles for the movies and for television.
On a train voyage on the luxury Orient Express from Istanbul to Calais in 1935, retired American businessman Ratchett (Richard Widmark) is brutally murdered in his private compartment, viciously stabbed numerous times. Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), who had been booked on the train at the very last minute, is asked by one of the train’s directors Mr. Bianchi (Martin Balsam) to investigate the crime and solve it before the corrupt Yugoslavian police have to be brought in. Poirot finds that this murder is somehow connected to the kidnapping and murder of the young child Daisy Armstrong some five years previously, and with a coach full of disparate characters from all walks of life, he soon suspects that any one of them could have been capable of the crime.
Screenwriter Paul Dehn’s brilliant, Oscar-nominated screenplay boils the essence of Agatha Christie’s astonishing mystery from the pages of the novel and, despite its locked train environment, paused in a snowdrift with no escape for the killer, manages to dot the narrative with innovative plot flourishes which keep it always fresh and engrossing. Those trappings start at the very beginning with a Richard Williams-designed prologue which recounts the kidnapping and murder of the young child in a montage of newspaper headlines, real-life encounters, photographs, and illustrations, offering some valuable clues to the eventual solution to the film’s murder but flying by so quickly as to be cleverly masked from view. We then move five years hence where, with Sidney Lumet’s deft direction, we get acquainted with our cast of characters, all given showy introductions of one kind or another demonstrating the care with which this great director is going to treat his performers and their material. In any mystery, the formula is ever-present: a crime is committed and the crime scene must be studied and the suspects must be interrogated before a solution to the mystery can be offered. To his credit, Lumet manages to make his confined space for investigating and questioning the suspects wonderfully varied going back and forth on the train as potential murderers parade before us, all fascinating characters and all suspicious, either in manner or circumstance.
Modern audiences may find his approach lacking the zippy quick cuts and fast action of more modern puzzle pictures, but in dealing with a classic mystery, this approach seems to be best (certainly in comparison to Kenneth Branagh’s more recent abomination of this classic tale.) Dehn’s running gag of having Bianchi point to each suspect after his or her examination with “He did it!” or “She did it!” is most amusing but closer to the truth than he knows at the time. At the conclusion, we get our answers with Poirot’s little gray cells on full display offering two solutions to the mystery while we get a magnificently staged murder sequence filmed in evocative blue light to Oscar-nominated, BAFTA-winning Richard Rodney Bennett’s moody, glorious score. Throughout, Tony Walton’s elaborate costumes and richly appointed production design give a luxurious air to the proceedings.
Albert Finney was heavily made up to be the proper age and girth of Hercule Poirot and earned one of his five career Oscar nominations for his indelible performance. His is not the bemused, quiet Poirot of David Suchet or the affable, gregarious Poirot of Peter Ustinov but rather a true eccentric, complete with hair net and mustache net at bedtime, chuckling to himself as he sees through the lies and obfuscations of his antagonists, and ready with the quip or the whip when the time is ripe. As for the gargantuan cast of supporting characters, they all play their roles with great aplomb with special mention going to Wendy Hiller’s stately but condescending Princess Natalia Dragomiroff, Lauren Bacall’s loud and obnoxious Mrs. Harriet Hubbard, Sean Connery as the nobly stiff upper-lipped Colonel Arbuthnot, and Ingrid Bergman’s timidly quivering missionary Greta Ohlsson. Bergman won her third Academy Award for her work in the film, and both she and John Gielgud as the tight-lipped butler Beddoes won BAFTA Awards. As he did with their introductions, director Sidney Lumet also generously allows the stars a curtain call at the end once Poirot has named the guilty party. It’s a satisfying conclusion to one of cinema’s classiest conundrums.
Video: 4.5/5
3D Rating: NA
The film’s original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is faithfully represented in these 2160p/1080p transfers using the HEVC/AVC codecs. This new UHD transfer is completely pristine without a single bit of noticeable dirt or dust. Though Dolby Vision has been applied to the image, apart from a few specular highlights from bright lights in the background and the opening prologue taking on a bit brighter appearance, there isn’t any notable depth gained in the shadows, and the grain structure which has always been present in home video versions of the movie isn’t singularly affected. Because a fair amount of diffusion was used in the Oscar-nominated cinematography of Geoffrey Unsworth, sharpness and color richness are a trifle subdued as has always been the case. The movie has been divided into 8 chapters.
Audio: 5/5
The Blu-ray and UHD discs offer both DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo (the default on the UHD) and 5.1 surround (the default on the Blu-ray) sound motifs. The 2.0 is a trifle louder, but both tracks present wonderful fidelity with clear dialogue that’s easy to understand and richly expansive music and sound effects to supplement the listening experience. There are no anomalies at all present in the mix.
Special Features: 4/5
Audio Commentary: film historians Howard S. Berger, Steve Mitchell, and Nathaniel Thompson have a lively back-and-forth discussion about the film and about how other films directed by Sidney Lumet mirror tropes used in this movie and set up some of his future work as well.
The other bonus material is available only on the Blu-ray disc in the package.
The Making of Murder on the Orient Express (48:32, HD) divided into four sections, this compilation of talking head interviews about the movie feature director Sidney Lumet, producers John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, Agatha Christie’s grandson Mathew Prichard, production and costume designer Tony Walton, novelist, filmmaker, and Christie fan Nicholas Meyer, composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and stars Sean Connery, Michael York, and Jacqueline Bisset.
An Interview with Richard Goodwin (18:45, HD): a more elderly Goodwin recounts some behind-the-scenes tales on the making of the movie.
Agatha Christie: A Portrait (9:35, HD): grandson Mathew Prichard offers reminiscences about his grandmother.
Theatrical Trailer (2:38, HD)
Kino Trailers: Death on the Nile, Evil Under the Sun, Witness for the Prosecution, Endless Night, The Mirror Crack’d, Ordeal by Innocence, Ten Little Indians, And Soon the Darkness, Murder by Decree.
Overall: 4.5/5
Though there have been many adaptations of Agatha Christie’s genre-bending Murder on the Orient Express, the 1974 Sidney Lumet-directed production is the jewel in the crown, one of the finest mystery films ever made. Though this 4K rendering taken from the original camera negative is spotlessly clean and looks the closest to the original theatrical presentation that I’ve ever seen, the extra resolution doesn’t really seem to enhance what’s available on the Blu-ray disc. Your mileage may vary. In any event, highly recommended!
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