This film starts out fantastic! Unbelievable Score, sharp and smart cinematography. The performances that inhabit the odd and wonderful characters are ALL incredible, Ingrid Bergman truly deserved her Oscar for this one. About towards the end of the first act and for most of the second, the pacing definitely flourishes though and you have to pay VERY close attention in order to understand what's going on. I say stick around because the payoff here is splendid and unlike anything I've ever seen in a mystery film before.

"Murder on the Orient Express" stands out as an unusual and different mystery. For that reason alone, it is a valuable part of the genre of mystery and crime films and books. Agatha Christie's tale set on the renowned train route from Istanbul to Paris is indeed a fascinating one. It is one of the best mysteries of all time. Those who have not read the book or heard the story will enjoy the movie the most by going into it without any foreknowledge. So, this review won't divulge any of the plot. Rather, it looks at the story in general, the cast and the setting. This film follows Christie's book very closely. Few names have been changed. The cast is superb. It has one of the largest casts of prominent actors - more than a dozen, in any film. And, none of these are cameos. Each person plays his or her character very well and very close to the book. The only character interpretation that I think didn't quite fit is the lead. Albert Finney's Hercule Poirot seems too talkative and doesn't have the thinking pauses that David Suchet's Poirot shows in the great TV series and movies later. Finney adds a touch of joviality to his flamboyance that doesn't seem quite right for the serious, thoughtful yet arrogant Poirot. But, that's not enough to lower this superb film and story. The performances of the rest of the cast are mostly outstanding. Lauren Bacall is wonderful as Mrs. Hubbard. Martin Balsam is lively and boisterous without being aggravating. He plays the Belgian official of the train company, Bianchi, who also is an acquaintance of Poirot's from the past. Jean-Pierre Cassel shines as Pierre, the Calais car attendant. Wendy Hiller is superb as the princess, and Sean Connery is spot on as Col. Arbuthnot. Vanessa Redgrave as Mary Debenham does beautifully with an air of mystery as though she has something to hide. And, for anyone who knows little about Ingrid Bergman, her Greta in this film shows the great talent of this actress. She surely deserves her best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in this film. She is one of the greatest actresses of all time. Only one other effort to film this Christie story is as good or better than this original. The 2010 movie made for the TV series captures the time and setting perfectly. David Suchet stars as Poirot. It gives a deeper look at Poirot and his disgust with murder. The most recent, 2017 film, changes many character names, some of the circumstances and background, and comes across as a movie being made in 2017. Its characters are mostly forgettable. This 1974, and the 2010 TV film, will be the standards for Christie's novel, should any efforts be made to make another movie. And if that happens, it's not likely to match the star-studded cast of this 1974 masterpiece. Altogether, the players in this film won 45 major film and stage awards in their careers. They won 8 Oscars and had 25 more Academy Awards nominations. They won 16 Golden Globes and had 32 more nominations. They won 9 BAFTA awards and had 29 more nominations. They won 6 TV Emmy awards and had 17 more nominations. And five of them won 6 Tony awards on Broadway.

Viewed at 2016 Yerevan Tribute to Jacqueline Bissett image1.jpeg "Murder on the Orient Express" (Lumet, 1975) is So bad it looks like a dress rehearsal for a film that never happened. If the Agathe Christie novel had suspense and witty dialogue Lumet's film has neither. Albert Finney's Hercule Poiret is so hammy that it is a burden to watch. The cast is practically a who's who of top ranking actors of the time from a fading Ingrid Bergman to an up and coming Jacqueline Bissett (as a sidekick of 007 Sean Connery) in a nothing role, a still saucy Lauren Bacall plus two escapees from Hitchcock's Psycho, Martin Balsam and a very clean cut handsome Tony Perkins. Also ran John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts, etcetera . The film starts with Richard Widmark, a wealthy man, meeting renowned detective Hercule Poiret in the dining car of the train, trying to hire Poiret to do a delicate job for him, getting turned down, and soon after getting murdered in his sleeping berth as the train comes to a halt blocked by a snow avalanche. From there it is straight downhill, a suffocating enclosed space talkathon in which each star recites their part as if at a rehearsal for a theater piece -- all actors in early 1900s period costume. Unbelievably boring considering the talent on view with the major interest being the attempt to identify the persons behind the heavy maquillage. Connery is particularly ridiculous in a bushy handlebar moustache straight from his role as James Bond. Strange that the Yerevan festival picked such minor Bissett films and overlooked the one that made her famous, or at least made her breastwork famous --The Deep.Big mystery, Who's who? In the Whodunnit

The nostalgic 1970's brought a modern twist to the old fashioned values that took America by storm in a turbulent era. Films like "Airport", "The Sting" and "What's Up Doc?" seem like they could have been made 40 years before, and only slight modern twists made them appear current. For the first of the Hercules Poirot murder mysteries, an all-star cast was hired, many of them veterans and many of them still quite in demand. This was the one and only opportunity for Albert Finney to play the part of the sly Belgian detective, and he's quite different from Peter Ustinov who played the part in half a dozen films, both for the cinema and for television.With a lemon puckered voice hardly musical (even though he sang in two films), Finney is less bumbling than Ustinov, but that doesn't mean that the comedy isn't there. He is much more direct, solemnly business like, and in a sense, more obviously shrewd. James Coco brilliantly spoofed Finney the following year in "Murder By Death". Surrounding him is an international cast who obviously knew that this film would be something special, and a chance to work with actors they might never have the chance to work with again. Like subsequent entries in the Pierot series (and other Agatha Christie stories), this starts off with a prelude seemingly unrelated to the main story, but as I found out by watching the others, nothing should be dismissed. Every move, perhaps every prop, is a clue, giving the audience ample opportunity to guess who did it. There's plenty of suspicion cast on everybody, even those who seem to be completely innocent.The victim? Richard Widmark. The suspects? Many. Annoying Lauren Bacall, Bible spouting Ingrid Bergman, imperious royal Wendy Hiller, her maid/companion (Rachel Roberts), suave nobleman Michael York, nervous mama's boy Anthony Perkins, graceful butler John Gielgud, nasty American businessman Martin Balsam, among others (Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave). They are all stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere when the murder is discovered. Of course, the mixture of personalities creates additional conflict, with the recurring joke of everybody desperately trying to avoid Bacall every time she appears, and the multiple error of Finney assumed to be French, not Belgian.A mention of Garbo puts attention on fellow Swede Bergman, winning her third Oscar for her greatly underplayed performance. With a cast like this, it's easy to get lost in who everybody is, but this is done in such an amusing manner that it never gets dull. It's a fully gorgeous production with every detail practically perfect. I can't imagine the 2017 remake topping this in any way.