The trailer of Kenneth Branagh’s The Murder on the Orient Express looks gorgeous. With a bunch of A-listers including Penélope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daisy Ridley, this would be the second big screen adaptation of the eponymous Agatha Christie novel.
First published on January 1, 1934, The Murder on the Orient Express is set on the luxurious train on a three-day journey from Istanbul to Calais. When Ratchett, a passenger, is brutally slain, Hercule Poirot sets his famed little grey cells to work in a case replete with the usual suspects that include a formidable Russian princess, a diplomat, a pucca sahib, an English miss, a hearty Italian and a propah butler.
Branagh’s adaptation seems to have taken a leaf out of Sidney Lumet’s critical and commercially successful version. Released in 1974, the movie starred Albert Finney as Poirot, Anthony Perkins as Ratchett’s secretary, Hector McQueen, Lauren Bacall as the garrulous Mrs Hubbard, Jacqueline Bisset as the nervous Countess Helena Andrenyi and Ingrid Bergman as the well-meaning missionary Greta Ohlsson. Finney overhears a crucial conversation between Sean Connery as the dashing Colonel Arbuthnott and English Rose Mary Debenham (Vanessa Redgrave).
The film was nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Actor for Finney, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. Bergman won for Best Supporting Actor.
A made for TV version with Alfred Molina as Poirot was made in 2001. Set in the present day with a younger Poirot, the movie didn’t deserve the universal brickbats it received. Poirot’s romance with Vera Rossakoff was unnecessary and failed spectacularly. The modernisation was a courageous stab (that pun was irresistible) at taking a different track (this one too) from Lumet’s scintillating spread. The up-to-date technology of 2001 is sweetly dated and makes the movie a period piece.
Instead of a hatbox revealing a crucial piece of evidence, here it is a video tape and instead of Arbuthnott’s pipe-cleaner at the scene of the crime, it is his stylus from his Palm Pilot (remember them?). Arbuthnott and Armstrong are software tycoons not brother Army officers and Poirot is quite comfortable using a laptop.
The most recent adaptation was in 2010 in the long-running television series, Agatha Christie’s Poirot , featuring David Suchet. Set in 1938 the adaptation was darker in tone. Starting from the suicide of the Army officer to the stoning of the adulteress in Istanbul, the film is heavy with allusions to crime, punishment, guilt and penance. Jessica Chastain played Mary Debenham while Hugh Bonneville from Downton Abbey goes Downstairs to play the butler, Masterman.
Though Branagh’s Poirot has bright blue eyes instead of green as mentioned in the books, he makes up with magnificent moustaches—Christie was apparently disappointed with Finney’s version of them. Johnny Depp plays Ratchett, Judi Dench Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and Josh Gad is the secretary Hector. Michelle Pfeiffer plays Mrs. Hubbard while Daisy Ridley (Rey from The Force Awakens ) plays Mary Debenham.
Pilar Estravados, who you will remember as old Simeon Lee’s Spanish daughter in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas , has been introduced in place of Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson. Penélope Cruz plays Pilar. Willem Dafoe plays Gerhard Hardman, the detective protecting Ratchett.
Trains play an important part in Christie novels from murders being committed on them — The Blue Train and 4.50 From Paddington to supplying important clues and alibis. In The Murder on the Orient Express , the train being stopped by a snowdrift provides the classic closed door setting for the whodunit.
The film is scheduled for release on November 10 hard on the heels of Thor Ragnarok . It all comes together nicely as Branagh who has directed stunning adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays, directed the first Thor movie, bringing a distinctly Shakespearean sensibility to the superhero film. Christie was a great fan of Shakespeare’s works and many of her books reference the Bard including Taken at the Flood and By the Pricking of my Thumbs . Mesdames et messieurs, Tout de suite, the time is right for a murder most foul.
