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The Appropriate Tune: 'Train Kept A Rollin'' by Aerosmith
If Mary Shelley could be said to be a pioneer of genre fiction, then Agatha Christie is certainly an innovator. By the time Christie entered the game the core premise of mystery fiction and the detective novel had already been established by writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle, but Christie was able to take that formula and put her own spin on it, to great success. Well, ‘great’ success is an understatement-- She’s one of the most popular novelists in the entirety of the English language with adaptations of her work being made to this day, the most recent being the overproduced but otherwise decent retellings by Kenneth Branagh. And because she’s been dead for years, she has no way to have controversial opinions on twitter that will piss off her fanbase. That’s true power right there.
So plenty of Christie adaptations to choose from, and while it would make sense to do a modern take on it like the Branagh films, there’s just not that much room on this blog for movies that weren’t made in the 70s or the 90s. Luckily there happens to have been a pretty famous adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s most famous novels made right smack dab in the middle of the 1970s, so that’s the one we’re going to be covering today. What are the odds, am I right?
Released in 1974, Murder on the Orient Express was written by Paul Dehn, directed by Sidney Lumet and produced by John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin through G.W. Films Limited, based on the novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. The year is 1935, and a colorful cast of characters have gathered in Istanbul in order to take a ride on the Orient Express, that most famous of transcontinental railways. There are American businessmen, Russian aristocrats, Hungarian ambassadors, and most importantly to our story, a Belgian private detective by the name of Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney). Things progress in the way things must do when traveling in a cramped series of hallways with a bunch of bougie snobs, until one day one of the passengers, a Mr. Ratchett is found dead in his room, stabbed 12 times in the chest. With the fear of scandal in his mind and the train temporarily stalled by a snow drift, the train’s director, Bianchi (Martin Balsam), begs Poirot to crack the case, which he accepts. His first major discovery: Ratchett’s name wasn’t actually Ratchett, it was Cosetti -- the same Cosetti behind the kidnapping and murder of a little girl named Daisy Armstrong 5 years prior. As good a motive for murder as any, but untangling the mystery of whose motive it was will prove to be a true test of Poirot’s deductive powers. Who is responsible for the murder on the Orient Express?
The 1970s were famous for heroin, disco music, and ensemble cast films. In the case of the latter this was most often expressed in disaster films like Airport 77 and Backdraft, but period pieces like Murder on the Orient Express here weren’t immune to its sweet allure. We have Albert Finney and Martin Balsam as I wrote, as well as Anthony Perkins, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Sean Connery, ol’ D'Artagnan himself Michael York, and a few others you might recognize. Occasionally this conflux of stars can end up coming together like oil and water and debilitating the film, but I never felt that with Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone feels ‘at ease’ in a manner of speaking, which I assume is down to everyone getting low impact roles with a decent amount of screentime and character work. Probably a fun shoot, all things considered.
Speaking of casting, I think it is in the casting of Poirot that sets Lumet’s adaptation of Christie above the modern versions, and I’m talking specifically about Death on the Nile here as that is the one that I’ve watched. Branagh has the mustache and he can do the accent, but his interpretation of the detective is far too tragic, far too heroic for my tastes. Poirot is not meant to be likable, Christie herself said that she hated the character, and I believe that Albert Finney grasps that more so than Branagh. Not that Finney’s Poirot is a total prick or anything, he’s still charismatic enough to carry a film, but the pomposity and the vanity that defined the character comes through. It also helps to add a bit of levity to the film (especially when Finney is paired with Martin Balsam), keeping things from getting too ground down by dour feelings. Which isn’t saying that there aren’t strong emotions here, but it’s a mystery story not sturm und drang.
To further the comparison, while both films work within the lavish, art deco style that dominated the pre-WWII world, Lumet’s production is simpler and more preferable than Branagh’s attempt. Lumet needs a boat sailing from a port he films it, Lumet needs a visual indicator of the melting pot that is Istanbul he shows it, and of course when in need of a train he has one handy. While I appreciate the technicolor feel of Branagh’s film at times, there’s so much CGI in Death on the Nile that just about every scene that takes place outside looks like it was pulled from a video game. Now of course Sidney Lumet didn’t even have the option to have CGI in his film, and Branagh’s interpretation of Orient Express might be different from his Nile, but the point I’m trying to make is what a director needs to show in order to convey the narrative of the film. Lumet feels restrained even for the time and yet still manages to establish the setting so the audience never has doubts, while Branagh feels overly excessive. Doesn’t really inspire me to go and check out his Orient Express either.
If there’s one point of contention I have with the film, it’s with the score by Richard Rodney Bennett. Not that it’s bad, I think it perfectly fits the period of the film, but it feels like it has exactly one emotional tone that it keeps throughout the thing. Even at times when you’d want something more dramatic or serious there’s still this bracing score going. I’d hardly call it a serious flaw though, just a little dissonant with the visual content.
Murder on the Orient Express gets an easy recommendation. No muss, no fuss, just a simple little mystery story to pass the time, expertly filmed and excellently performed. Those readers who are interested in exploring Christie’s body of work cinematically will find this a good stepping stone, and everyone else will find a fun detective story. Give it a shot.
