Mord im Orient-Express (1974)

Mord im Orient-Express: Directed by Sidney Lumet. With Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Martin Balsam, Ingrid Bergman. In December 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before.

“u0026quot;Murder On The Orient Expressu0026quot; is arguably the most famous theatrically released film based on an Agatha Christie book, but there are two factors that keep me from rating it quite as high as its successors, u0026quot;Death On The Nileu0026quot; and u0026quot;Evil Under The Sunu0026quot;: a) Albert Finney has his moments as Hercule Poirot, but sometimes his stuffy, mannered performance comes close to obnoxiousness (some people might claim that heu0026#39;s trying to be more accurate to the character as written by Christie, but I donu0026#39;t think the Poirot of the books would ever tear up the menu of a restaurant and throw the pieces up in the air), b) although the solution to the mystery is one of Christieu0026#39;s most daring and unusual, it is also pretty tough to translate from the page to the screen because it is necessary to introduce a remarkably high number of characters and explain the connection of all their backgrounds to the present events. The script does not succeed 100% at this task, and some of Poirotu0026#39;s conclusions seem to come from pure supposition. Besides all that, however, thereu0026#39;s still a lot to like about u0026quot;Murder On The Orient Expressu0026quot;: the superb cast (though I donu0026#39;t know why Ingrid Bergman won an Oscar for this role, if anyone deserved such an award, it was probably John Gielgud or Wendy Hiller), the exhilarating music score, the nostalgic train setting, and some memorably atmospheric scenes (the opening, the re-construction of the crime, etc.). Definitely a film that can be watched multiple times. *** out of 4.”