All language subtitles for CLASSIC MOVIES STORY OF - 5 - Documentary (2024) –

(TRAIN WHISTLES)

(CONDUCTOR SPEAKS ITALIAN)

Grazie, Pierre.
I understand that you are full up.

It's unbelievable, signore.

All the world
likes to travel tonight.

Nonetheless, you must find room
for Monsieur Poirot, here.

Monsieur Hercule Poirot?

In a cramped
but luxurious train carriage,

snowbound
between Istanbul and Calais,

twelve suspects have gathered to hear
an irascible little Belgian man

reveal who committed murder.

His hair pomaded to the shine
of his patent leather shoes,

his face jowly with late middle age.

How he loves the sound
of his own voice.

(SHUFFLING)

And do you think Finney
is the definitive Poirot?

I think yes,
Finney is the definitive Poirot

in that he perfectly calibrates

the humour
and the seriousness of his role

with a real sense
of kind of moral backbone.

And he was supposed
to take up the role again

in Death On The Nile in 1978,

and didn't in the end.
He was replaced by Peter Ustinov.

Something is poetic
about being a one off, isn't it?

Just the one perfect moment.
Absolutely.

And Poirot is, you know,
his Poirot specifically,

is up there with
sort of Humphrey Bogart,

Sam Spade, or Philip Marlowe,

one of those kind of
quintessential cinematic detectives.

(GRAND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(TRAIN WHISTLING)

POIROT: In three days, all these
people, these total strangers

meet in a single train
whose engine controls their destiny.

BIANCHI: Oh, yes, I know. We are
both envious of the husband, eh?

Is, uh...

is the husband
as British as his tweeds?

Oh, heaven forbid,
he's a hot-blooded Hungarian.

If you but look at his wife,
he will cease to be a diplomat.

Thank God we are not young.
(BOTH CHUCKLE)

Beneath the remarkable makeup

lies the 37-year-old
British actor Albert Finney,

having the time of his life.

With wit and eloquence,
and no little flamboyance,

he reveals a plot
of complexity and cunning.

An attempt
not only to perpetrate murder,

but then outwit
the great detective Hercule Poirot.

For this is the gripping climax

to the legendary whodunnit,
Murder On The Orient Express,

when the truth will out.

NEIL: Murder on the Orient Express,

the 1974 version of the film,

is probably the best version

of any Agatha Christie novel.

There is a variety
of reasons for this.

It is first of all,
beautifully cast.

It is beautifully designed.

It is directed
absolutely impeccably,

and it does everything
that the book does, but more.

Finney is surrounded by one of
the greatest casts ever assembled.

Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman,

Lauren Bacall, Vanessa Redgrave,

Anthony Perkins, John Gielgud,

Jacqueline Bisset, Michael York,

Wendy Hiller, Rachel Roberts.

Jean-Pierre Cassel, Denis Quilley,

Colin Blakely, Martin Balsam,

with Richard Widmark as the victim.

There also happened to be a peculiar

but brilliant little man
behind the camera -

the unconventional choice
of Sidney Lumet,

the New York director
better known for his gritty,

street-wise psychodramas

like 12 Angry Men and Serpico.

In his hands, this talky, starry,

intricately plotted thriller,

a huge hit in 1974,

became still the definitive
Agatha Christie adaptation.

It elevated the whodunnit

to an exhilarating
exploration of character.

What did you do
on Murder On The Orient Express?

Well I was what, in those days,
was called continuity,

but today it's called
script supervisor.

I actually had worked
for the director.

He is one of the most efficient
directors I've ever worked with.

He was so disciplined,

he really knew,
he planned everything.

You rehearsed for a week or two,

depending on the film.

You could ask, or I should say,
the actors could ask,

any question they liked
about their characters.

He had written
sort of backstories for them.

But once that was all hammered out

in the rehearsal period...

..he would not tolerate them
coming up and saying,

'What is my character thinking?'
or, 'What should I be doing?'

or could I do this or that?

That was all sorted out
during the rehearsal period.

So what do you make of Sidney Lumet?

He seems a very unconventional choice
to direct Agatha Christie.

Well, on one hand you have this kind
of quintessentially English writer,

and someone who is often
dealing with European aristocracy,

and the upper crust
of the old world.

And then you have
this incredibly New York

kind of street director,
Sidney Lumet,

who started out in TV
doing live television in the 1950s,

but, you know, went on
to make films like 12 Angry Men,

and, of course, Serpico.

So he had this reputation

for being gritty and realistic,

and really absolutely nothing
to do with this very stylised

and plush world of old Europe.

And this very English world

that Agatha Christie
presented in her novels.

I think one
of the reasons that Lumet

works so well with this film

is because he understood

that, quite apart
from being, you know,

the greatest selling
author of all time,

Agatha Christie was also

the greatest
female playwright of all time.

She wanted to be a playwright
and spent a lot of time

not getting plays on,

but when she hit, she hit big.

And she understood the idea

of transferring theatrical devices

into her novels and vice versa.

I think that's what makes
Sidney Lumet in particular,

a wonderfully appropriate
director for this.

He came out of theatre himself.

Many of his films
are based on original stage plays.

Congratulations
on this very real achievement.

How do you feel
about having the longest run

ever in the land of the theatre?

Well naturally,
I think it's wonderful.

Hardly believe it.Well, I think
most people think it's wonderful.

It's certainly the longest run
of any of your plays.

Do you think, yourself,
that it's the best?

Well, I don't think an author
can tell, themselves, do you?

Did you think, yourself,
when you wrote this

that it was a sure-fire winner?

No, I never think that. (CHUCKLES)

You don't like your own plays
even when you see them produced?

Ah, when I see them produced,
it's better.In what way?

Well, I mean when you've
just finished writing them,

of course, you think they're
terrible. The same with books.

Do you prefer
writing plays or books?

Oh, plays every time.
Why?Much more fun.

To see them all coming to life?
No, just more fun to write.

Have you ever met a real criminal?

Ah, maybe.

But I don't know if so.

Why are you so fascinated by crime?

I don't know
that I'm very fascinated by it.

I just began writing about it

and then one continues,
doesn't one, usually?

I've always liked detective stories.

You like other people too?
Mmm, always liked them, yes.

Can you tell me,
what about your future?

Have you a play
on the stocks at the moment

that might run
as long as The Mousetrap?

Ah, one would never
like to say that.

(LAUGHS)
Thank you very much.

Agatha Christie
was and is hugely important.

The best-selling
novelist of all time.

But the years between the wars

were a golden age
of detective fiction,

and most of the writers were women.

Dorothy Sayers, Josephine Tey,

Margery Allingham.

But where Agatha Christie stands out

is, well, partly
her sheer prolific quality.

What, 33 novels on Poirot alone?

And maybe 50 short stories, a play.

I think 66 novels in all.

Dorothy Sayers wrote about a dozen.

But clearly she,

even more than her contemporaries,

hit something in the zeitgeist.

Because in the years

after the First World War,

almost every household
had lost someone.

Death needed to have
the sting taken out of it,

and that's what the classic
detective stories did.

Look at this one,
Murder On The Orient Express.

Does anyone care
about the man who's killed?

No. That's what it tends to be.

It tends to be a puzzle

without too much inconvenient,

painful emotion in it.

POIROT: You are in danger.My life
has been threatened, Mr Poirot.

My secretary can show you
two letters on file.

And I...

can show you this.

I sleep on it.

Mr Poirot...

..$5,000.

No?

$10,000?
(TRAIN BELL RINGS)

$15,000?

Mr Ratchett,
I have made enough money

to satisfy both my needs
and my caprices.

I take only such cases now
as interests me and to be frank,

my interest in your case is, uh...

dwindling.

(TRAIN WHISTLES)

(TRAIN ANNOUNCER SPEAKING FRENCH)

NEWSREEL: Paris has
six railway stations,

the busiest of which
is the Gare de Lyon.

The Orient Express pulls out
at 8:20 every night.

Only one car will go
the entire route to Istanbul.

Along with the diplomats, the
couriers, and their secret pouches,

reporter Kendrick
rode in the Istanbul car.

Producer John Brabourne
was visiting the Kremlin

with his daughter in the early 70s,
queuing for Lenin's tomb.

She was so engrossed in her book,

she didn't pay the slightest bit
of attention to their surroundings.

He asked her what she was reading.

It was Murder On The Orient Express.

Brabourne had impressive credentials.

He was a Baron,
Lord Mountbatten's son-in-law,

and cousin to the Queen.

As a film producer,
he veered towards literary subjects.

He would produce
Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet,

as well as
the Tales of Beatrix Potter,

but was warned that Agatha Christie

had grown very protective
over her books.

The truth was,
Agatha Christie had grown weary

of the poor adaptations of her work,

especially on screen.

Dating back as far as 1928

with The Passing Of Mr Quin,

films based on her books
were mostly unsatisfactory.

She thought
that Margaret Rutherford

had turned Miss Marple
into a lovable buffoon.

With the exception of Billy Wilder's

Witness For The Prosecution,

no one had got it right.

So what are your recollections
of John Brabourne,

who was Lord Brabourne, I believe,

who was the producer of the film,
who was the son-in-law

of Lord Mountbatten,
have I got that right?

So he was quite a grand person
to be producing the film.

Oh, yes, John Brabourne,

and Richard Goodwin was his partner.

He was co-producer with him.

Lord Brabourne was the one

who brought Prince Charles
to the set, and...

..towards the end,
his youngest brother Edward came

after school to see the set.

But he called himself
John Brabourne to everybody,

we didn't call him Lord Brabourne.

He was actually a very nice man.

And had been sort of
working in films for...

quite a long time.

What do you know
of Agatha Christie's rather dislike

for the adaptations of her work?

Christie was said to be,
by her husband,

allergic to the screen adaptations
of her work.

She never really liked any of them,
she was highly critical

of their casting and so forth.

But she did really like
Billy Wilder's

Witness For The Prosecution.

So you could say she had pretty
good taste where that was concerned.

Agatha Christie was very reluctant

to have any more of her books
adapted for the screen,

because she had suffered
in the past.

The first adaptation, of course,
was a great one -

1957 Witness For The Prosecution.

Billy Wilder and Marlene Dietrich,

Tyrone Power, Charles Laughton.

Great. But then...

..she made a deal which
she bitterly regretted with MGM.

She needed the money,
you wouldn't think of that

for such a staggeringly
successful writer,

but she had got
into a tax difficulty,

which plagued her
for many, many years.

So she signed a deal with MGM,

who cast Margaret Rutherford
as Miss Marple.

Agatha personally liked

and admired Margaret Rutherford,

dedicated a novel to her, in fact.

But this series of,
I think, four films,

got weirder and weirder.

She was even more upset when MGM

then turned
their attention to Poirot.

They cast Tony Randall as Poirot.

The ABC Murders

became the Alphabet Murders
on screen.

But they had Poirot

in a bowling alley,

making with the bowls.

They were trying,

I think, to answer the success

of the Inspector Clouseau movies,

to make him a semi-comic

action hero, almost.

And they actually had Miss Marple

and Hercule Poirot
meeting for a moment.

And needless to say,

Agatha was even more
distressed about this.

She swore never again,

no more film adaptations.

But the makers of The Orient Express

persuaded her to change her mind.

Through his august father-in-law,

Brabourne was granted a rare audience
with the reclusive author.

He convinced her that they
would do justice to her novel,

set on the famous train.

Lumet understood
because he came out of theatre,

and he understood different mediums
when he was directing.

He'd been in television.

And he was attracted
by the idea of turning

what is basically
a static piece of work,

into a big cinema experience.

Sidney Lumet was looking
to do something lighter.

He wanted to make a souffle, he said,

and here was the perfect recipe.

One that took him far from New York,

and promised the possibility
of working with his idols,

and had
a brilliantly structured plot.

But once he was shooting,

he was confronted
by a fascinating challenge -

to tell a story trapped
within the confines of a train.

And it is also
a period piece set in 1935.

Lumet's metier
is contemporary thrillers,

social justice on the hard-hitting
streets of New York.

But on closer inspection,
it makes perfect sense.

The carriage is a jury room.

There are distinct echoes
of 12 Angry Men,

and courtroom thrillers like Serpico,

where one man pursues the truth.

Lumet is so good with the dynamics

of personality in confined spaces,

thriving where the only tool
to hand is performance.

In a sense, when you look
at Murder On The Orient Express,

it's very similar to 12 Angry Men.

There are 12 suspects,
they are confined to one space,

and there is one man
pursuing the truth.

So you imagine, actually,
while Sidney Lumet said

he wanted to do something
lighter and more melodramatic,

he may have seen a quintessential
Sidney Lumet film in there.

Yeah, there are certainly parallels
to be drawn between these two films,

and I think Lumet's
interest in law and order

and the justice system,
in America usually,

and also in the kind of individual
weight of moral responsibility...

all of these things appear
in these life or death stories,

these whodunnits
that Agatha Christie wrote.

And in Murder On The Orient Express,
the hero, Poirot,

is ultimately left
with a decision to make,

a moral decision to make, about...

what's right and what's wrong,
and who should be...

who should be seen as innocent
and who should be seen as guilty.

Adapted by Paul Dehn,

with an uncredited rewrite
by Anthony Shaffer,

the story is well-known.

With Poirot,
a late and unexpected passenger,

the Orient Express begins
to wend its way across Europe.

The next morning, the unlikeable
business man, Ratchett,

played with nervy malevolence
by Richard Widmark,

is found stabbed to death.

Poirot's senses alerted,
his mind ticking,

he leaps upon the case.

A murder perpetrated
beneath his very nose.

The fallacy about Agatha Christie

is that she wrote cosy mysteries

all set in vicarages
in Sussex or Kent.

Of course, she did some of those,

but, in fact,
she had a much broader canvas.

She was very, very well travelled.

I mean, she travelled
on the Orient Express,

she'd spent quite a lot
of time in Egypt as a child.

Her second husband
was an archaeologist.

So she knew the world,
I mean, and she absorbed it,

and she was fascinated
by other cultures.

And many of her books

are in fact set on a, you know,

they're set on a much
broader international scale

than I think we tend to think of.

At the heart
of Agatha Christie's book,

there's a very American story.

All the evidence, all the what's
going on behind the murder,

is about an up-state New York family.

That's what
you need to know going in.

And it's not so far away
from the world of Sidney Lumet.

And Agatha Christie
actually based her book

partly on the story
of the Lindbergh kidnappings

in the early 1930s, the kidnapping
of the Lindbergh baby.

So there is that American...
very famous American news story

about celebrity and violence

in, you know,
the heart of that novel.

So there's something
interesting about the fact

that Lumet, who is
so fascinated by these themes,

is returning to this story.

Backed by EMI films,

this is a prestige British picture
in the Korda mould.

Literary, with a period setting,

and laden with stars.

But it is very much
a Lumet picture too,

drawing close to its characters,

and enjoying
the moral uncertainty of the story.

Did the victim have it coming?

It is a study in class, family,

conspiracy, and vengeance.

(LOCK CLICKS)
The chain.

Ah, touch nothing!

Where are Signor Bianchi
and the Greek doctor?

In the dining car, Monsieur.

Fetch them at once.

NEWSREEL: The train moves
across the Italian countryside

toward the Adriatic and Trieste.

The diners lose money, but are run
to continue the tradition.

Every meal except breakfast
includes veal.

Here, 20 hours from Paris,
the Orient Express

ceases being just a train,
and becomes a symbol as well.

Lumet was certain
that if he landed one superstar,

the rest would surely follow.

So he approached his friend
Sean Connery first.

They had made
two complex thrillers together.

Connery loved the idea.

It was another Lumet challenge,

to make an impression
with little screen time.

One by one, they fell into place,

delighted by this ingenious story.

Lumet's sole disappointment

is that he failed to lure
Marlene Dietrich out of retirement.

(MAN SINGS INDISTINCTLY)
(DOG BARKS)

Welcome, Colonel Arbu...

Arbu... Arbut...

Arbuthnot.

MAN: (ON PA) The bus for Esperin
will shortly depart

for Istanbul Sirkeci station.

You get a real sense
of international travel,

what it must have been like
at that time in Istanbul Station,

which is all crowded
with all kinds of different people.

And through the sort of
steam and the haze

come these various
fantastical characters,

dressed absolutely brilliantly,

to board
the first class compartments.

In between that,
you see this wonderful food

that's been sort of
given up to the thing.

And all being tested,
you know, an oyster is opened.

(SMACKS LIPS) Yes, OK, they're good.
The wine is looked at.

He looks at the bottle.
Hmm, right vintage, yes.

And all these tiny details
sort of build up

to the idea that you're going
on an amazing journey

in the company of amazing people.

Then he pans right back

to the train itself
and the locomotive,

which, of course,
is a character in itself.

It's a magnificent sort of machine.

All this is done in darkness.
Actually, it's quite dark.

And there's a lot of clatter,

and a little bit of music.

But when everybody is on board

and when the train
is ready to go off,

what happens is that the lights

on the headlights of the train
come blazing forth.

(GRAND ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)

(STEAM HISSES)

The music rises to the crescendo,

and what you're listening to
is an overture

to a huge musical spectacle.

This is like an MGM film,
or a piece of theatre,

which is what
you are going to get on film.

And out it goes into the darkness,

and the last thing you hear

is the long, mournful whistle,

which sounds exactly like a scream.

(TRAIN WHISTLES)It is one
of the most brilliant openings

of a film of that kind that I think
I've ever seen. Fabulous.

SARAH: Well, Sidney Lumet, in a way,

he brought the best
of Hollywood to England.

He didn't want to be corralled

into the Hollywood model.

But from the start,
he was determined

that this wouldn't be
a little, cute,

cosy adaptation of Agatha Christie.

That this would be socking,

full-out glamour, and fun,

and that's what he did.

The moment I see that first

is when Mrs Hubbard,
the Lauren Bacall character,

arrives in the station

wearing this amazing concoction.

Lumet himself said, quite rightly,

that no-one has ever
got on a train dressed like that

to start a long journey,
but who cares?

These weren't ordinary dresses,
these were costumes.

Glamorous.
And that's glamour to the max.

This was the first
Agatha Christie adaptation

to have its list of suspects

played by a suite of greats...

..to have
her already-grand characters

loaded with superstar baggage.

That Bacall's character
is a little like Bacall,

or that Bergman's
is rather like Bergman,

is entirely deliberate.

The film honours its starts,

even as it accuses them of murder.

When you've got stars
of that magnitude, you know,

and you have some really
not just big stars,

but really, really fine actors,
all sort of having

more or less equal time
and jostling for position.

There was no jostling for position
because they trusted Sidney

in order to be able
to make it all work.

The lovely thing was
that he also managed

to sort of use their personas,

or their profiles,

within the characters
that they were playing.

So, for example, Anthony Perkins

pops up as McQueen,

the sort of assistant
to Richard Widmark.

And he's a very nervous man.
He's very nervous, he's twitchy.

He has a mother fixation.

Of course, the minute you hear that,

you realise that you're watching
sort of Norman Bates,

or Norman Bates's sort of
second cousin down the line.

And it gives you a connection
to his earlier performances,

which... it doesn't distract
from the character,

it actually makes it
somehow more fully rounded

because you've got a history,
or a potential history,

behind the character
you're watching on the screen.

There's a really
fascinating idea, I think,

in Murder On The Orient Express,

and I think Lumet's
very good with it.

Is that all these wonderful actors

are playing a part

that is playing a part,
if you understand me.

They are all deceiving,
certainly, Poirot.

So what we see on the screen
isn't necessarily their character.

Their character is sort of
hidden within the performance

they are giving within the film.

And it's a sort of
fantastically layered idea.

I think it's something
that he probably got to relish in.

You know, coming off the back
of a film like Serpico,

which was ripped from the headlines,

where you're talking
about real people and, you know,

where Frank Serpico,
the main character there,

was somebody that Al Pacino was
spending time with to learn about.

You get a lot more free rein with
a literary adaptation like this,

and particularly because
you have such big characters.

But you also manage
to get these actors

who are kind of playing
with their own personas.

So Ingrid Bergman, who is playing

this very sort of meek,
pious missionary.

I mean, 'Is she actually so pious?'
is the question.

And of course, in Ingrid Bergman's
own life, she was often cast

in parts like that early
in her career, in things like

The Bells Of St Mary's,
for instance.

And then her infamous affair

with the Italian film director
Roberto Rossellini

sort of shattered
her reputation in America,

and caused a great scandal.
And so she wasn't nearly

as sort of saintly
as she appeared on the screen.

And that, all of that,
is feeding back into the persona

and the layers
of persona that you get.

What is it that is so pleasurable
about Murder On The Orient Express?

It is that it's entirely
about performance.

It works as an ensemble
of very different actors and styles,

like an expensive chocolate box.

Compare Bacall's
feisty American divorcee -

almost a self-parody -

with Connery's simmering anger

as a dyed-in-the-wool
British officer.

But it also works as a one-man show -

Finney's delectable take on Poirot.

Mr Ratchett
has been frontally stabbed...

..ten, eleven, twelve times.

Oh, dear.Mon pauvre,
if you must go woop-woop,

please go woop-woop
not to windward, but to leeward.

Help him, Pierre.

There had been Poirots
on stage and film,

including Charles Laughton,
Austin Trevor and Tony Randall.

None had come close
to Agatha Christie's

fastidious Belgian detective.

When both Alec Guinness
and Paul Scofield declined the role,

Lumet turned to Albert Finney.

He was too young,

but Lumet knew
what a precise actor Finney was.

Finney was certain that he wanted

to make Poirot
not necessarily likeable.

He is arrogant,
disdainful, eccentric.

He transforms from irritation

to almost childish delight

when the case unfurls before him.

So tell me something
about his performance

and watching him take on
the character. How did he work?

Well, it's hard
to know how somebody works.

I mean, he had discussed his part

at great lengths,
I'm sure, with Sidney,

and they had come to an agreement

as to how he was going to play it.

And you know, again,

he just got on with it.

We didn't ever have actors saying

'I don't like this line,'
or 'I don't want to do it this way.'

A two-week rehearsal
was vital for Lumet,

to bring his cast together
and get them singing to his tune.

Also, to get
all their questions out the way.

Once they were shooting,
he would be obsessed

with the case's Poirot.

He was amazed to find how the legends

were nervous meeting one another.

He had to remind them
they were all actors.

Time to knuckle down.

Well, can't you tap the telephone
wires?Fire a rocket or something?

BIANCHI: This is not a ship, madam.
Where are we?

We are between Vinkovci and Brod.

In what country?
In Yugoslavia.

The Balkans.
What else can you expect?

Snow is God's will
and always for the best.

Yeah, but h-h-how long do you think

before we start getting out of here?
As soon as the station master

perceives that we do not arrive
on time, he will send-(CLATTERING)

What was the rehearsal like,
and gathering together

all these legends of film?

Well, they were all
very supportive of each other,

and what you did with Sidney

was to read around the table.

They would all read their parts,
and I'd sometimes

have to read the scene descriptions.

We probably did that twice,

and then he rehearsed

every scene in the film,

because the sets were marked out,

because we didn't
have them built or anything.

So they rehearsed it that way

and so they knew
exactly what they were doing

when it came to shooting it.
Yeah.

Observe, memorise.
You are my only witnesses!

A-I-S-Y A-R-M-S.
BIANCHI: What does that mean?

It means...

we know the true identity
of Mr Ratchett...

..and why he had to leave America.

(HUMS, SINGS INDISTINCTLY)

(FOOTSTEPS, OBJECTS CLATTER)

(HUMS, SINGS INDISTINCTLY)

(CHUCKLES)

(LAUGHS)

The book presents
an interesting cinematic challenge.

Everything is seen or heard
from Poirot's perspective.

Of course, he arrives
at the scene of the crime

before it has been committed.

The night of the murder is depicted

in a series of glimpses.

Distant voices, knocks at a door,

clues that seem too obvious.

Once the body is discovered,

the story evolves into a series

of interrogations with the suspects,

these delicious vignettes

where each actor
gets a chance to shine.

The interiors of the train
were built at Elstree Studios.

It was a film consciously restricted
in terms of space.

Apart from
the early scenes in Istanbul,

the arrivals of the passengers
and exteriors of the train,

the story is entirely set
within the bounds

of two carriages
of the sumptuous Orient Express.

Lumet keeps his cast

confined to the train.

Scenes are shot often over

or around Poirot,

as if the camera is one step
behind his investigation.

It's really a feat

of several different strands,
I guess, of Lumet's talent,

and it shows how many
different talents he had in that.

He started out
working in confined spaces

in that he was often
working on live television,

one-set plays in cramped studios.

So something
which was born of necessity,

which is to say that he could work
really well in confined spaces,

and figure out ways
to put the camera

in the places they needed to be,

and often with really teeming,

complex amounts of things going on

within those shots as well.

But that thing
that was born of necessity

kind of became a signature for him.

And he continues to do that
in so many others of his films,

even as the budgets increase.

And with
Murder On The Orient Express,

of course, so much of it takes place

in this confined area of the train

and the compartments of that train.

And on top of that, of course, the
train is snowbound, it's trapped.

So it gives
a real claustrophobic air.

And there's a wonderful...

sort of sense of use of design
of the train itself.

And it's very unusual, you know,

he doesn't shoot
the train in a cliched way.

He uses these
kind of strange lights.

He makes it almost like
a haunted house, certainly during
the nighttime sequences.

There's a weird blue light
in Poirot's room, he's woken up.

And sort of an oddity,
a strangeness to the environment,

yet it's full of luxury too.

Now, tell me something
about the shooting of the film,

because it's in
a remarkably confined space.

It's carriages of a train,

and there's not much room to move.

So how difficult was that
to physically work with?

Well, it was constrained,

but it was all based on, you know,

the size of the carriages.

I mean, the cabins
were the size of the real cabins.

And Tony Walton

was the Art Director on that film.

And I think he,
if I remember correctly,

he'd managed to get

some of the original panels
from the train

to be used on the film.

That must have added
to the whole atmosphere

of creating the film.

Yes, it did. I think, you know,

the set was confined,
but it was very accurate.

But I think everybody
quite enjoyed it.

In the grand tradition
of the whodunnit,

the film finishes with Poirot

gathering the characters together.

Twelve of them, to match a jury.

And he reveals who killed Ratchett.

It is a tour de force from Finney.

Eight pages of near-monologue,

a character who loves
to take centre stage.

It's a performer playing a performer,

a show-off, and a brilliant man

setting the universe to rights.

I am inclined to agree
with Mr Foscarelli...Ah!

..who believes that he was
a rival member of the mafia,

exacting private vengeance
for a vendetta whose precise nature

the Yugoslav police
will undoubtedly identify.

But... is that all?

No. No, no, no, no.

No, it is not.

So the conclusion always is with...

..Poirot bringing together

all the suspects into one room,

and then, basically,

delivering a speech

which sort of goes through
all his deductions.

I mean, he gives his... This is
his chance to be a performer.

This is his chance
to be the star of his own show.

Because he can then show off
how clever he has been,

in terms of working out 'whodunnit'.

And, in this case, it's wonderful

because not only is Albert Finney

actually probably
the perfect Poirot,

he is, of course,
an actor of immense capability.

And he sort of gives that whole idea

of being someone
on stage in the spotlight,

actually addressing
not just suspects,

but an audience.

In November 1974,

Agatha Christie attended
the London premiere,

and expressed
her rare approval of the film.

Apart from the matter
of an underwhelming moustache,

this was her Poirot.

It would be her last
public appearance.

She died 14 months
after the release of the film.

How well do you think
Sidney Lumet serves Agatha Christie?

How well does he depict
her world in the novel?

I think he does
a really incredible job of both...

..ramping up
this 1930s art deco world,

this world of, you know,
very kind of wealthy,

international people.

And largely, I should add, a cast
of American and English actors

playing all manner
of nationalities in the film.

But he also brings
something unique to it,

by taking this very...

you might even say stuffy world,

and approaching it differently,

both visually and psychologically.

He is very interested
in psychological realism.

These are not cardboard cutouts.

You know, that's
the Russian princess, for instance,

and that's
the moustachioed Belgian detective.

Yes, OK, on the face of it,
that's fine, but...

he is really interested
in delving into their perplexity,

their anger, their confusion,
their self-deception.

And that's quintessential Lumet.

The film would be a big hit,
especially in America

where it helped firmly establish
Agatha Christie.

It received
six Academy Award nominations,

including Best Actor for Finney.

No other Poirot ever did that.

Ingrid Bergman
won Best Supporting Actress

for her no more than a single take,
five minutes long,

in which she created
an entire character,

and said something
about the tragedy of her career.

Though if the Academy had any wit,

they would have given them all
an Oscar together.

In the years since
Murder On The Orient Express,

Agatha Christie
has become an industry.

Nearly all of her books
and short stories

have been adapted
in one form or another,

some of them good, many mediocre.

But none of them are a match
for Finney's core precision.

It's become the signifier,

the classic of an Agatha Christie
mystery, hasn't it?

That moment at the end
where the detective,

where Poirot,
assembles all the characters,

and tells them what happened.

Opportunity for lavish use
of flashbacks, of course,

as we see what really happened,

as Poirot describes it.

The actors actually
living out those roles

that had led to the original murder.

I'm not sure
whether this was the first

real use of it on the screen,

but if so, it was vitally important.

Because that has become
the benchmark, if you like.

It's almost...
say the words Agatha Christie,

say Hercule Poirot,

and that is what you see.

You see Poirot in,

whether it's the drawing room
of a great country house,

or the dining car
of the Orient Express,

laying it all out, what happened.

And an amazing thing
to act and film, of course.

An amazing job for Albert Finney.

More than even the brand
of Agatha Christie,

the whodunnit has become
a central tenet of modern culture.

The genre has never been so popular,

the rules firmly fixed in place.

The murder,
the suspects, the locations,

the clues,
and the eccentric detective.

But Sidney Lumet's
Murder On The Orient Express

is not only
the definitive Agatha Christie,

but the best of an entire genre.

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