Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie [94]
Murder on the Orient Express was made into a film, but not until 1974 when it became the most successful British film ever made, with gross profits of more than £20,000,000. EMI was the production company, the producers were John Brabourne and Richard Goodwin, and the director was Sidney Lumet. All the roles were played by stars or very well-known feature actors: Albert Finney (Poirot), Richard Widmark (Ratchett, the victim), Lauren Bacall (Mrs Hubbard), Wendy Hiller (Princess Dragomiroff), Rachel Roberts (Hildegrade Schmidt, the German maid), Michael York and Jacqueline Bisset (the Andrenyis), Vanessa Redgrave (Mary Debenham, the English governess), Sean Connery (Colonel Arbuthnot), Ingrid Bergman (Greta Ohlsson), Martin Balsam (M. Bouc, whose name was changed, presumably for reasons of euphony, to Bianchi), John Gielgud (the victim’s valet, with again a change of name from Masterman to Beddoes), Anthony Perkins, Colin Blakely, Denis Quilley, and Jean Pierre Cassel.
This was altogether a different affair from the cheaply made Agatha Christie movies of the thirties. Expensively and stylishly produced in colour, it was highly entertaining, though the profusion of famous faces on the screen tended to detract from the dramatic effect. Albert Finney took great pains to sink himself into the character of Poirot, with the help of an excellent make-up artist, but the other stars were instantly recognizable. Recreated at the studio in Elstree by the designer Tony Walton, who had managed to borrow parts of the old Orient Express from the museum of the Compagnie des Wagons Lits in Paris, the train almost stole the show.
Paul Dehn’s screenplay was highly respectful to the novel. Max Mallowan revealed that Agatha Christie, who generally disliked the film versions of her books, ‘gave a rather grudging appreciation to this one’, which was described in the London Times as ‘touchingly loyal’ to its source. The Times critic added, ‘It says precisely at the level of the Agatha Christie, demands the same adjustments, the same precarious suspension of disbelief’.
Agatha Christie said of the film: ‘It was very well made except for one mistake I cannot find in my heart to forgive. It was Albert Finney as my detective Hercule Poirot. I wrote that he had the finest moustache in England—and he didn’t in the film. I thought that a pity. Why shouldn’t he have the best moustache?’20
About Charles Osborne
This essay was adapted from Charles Osborne’s The Life and Crimes of Agatha Christie: A Biographical Companion to the Works of Agatha Christie (1982, rev. 1999). Mr. Osborne was born in Brisbane in 1927. He is known internationally as an authority on opera, and has written a number of books on musical and literary subjects, among them The Complete Operas of Verdi (1969); Wagner and His World (1977); and W.H. Auden: The Life of a Poet (1980). An addict of crime fiction and the world’s leading authority on Agatha Christie, Charles Osborne adapted the Christie plays Black Coffee (Poirot); Spider’s Web; and The Unexpected Guest into novels. He lives in London.
About Agatha Christie
Agatha Christie is known throughout the world as the Queen of Crime. Her books have sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in 100 foreign languages. She is the most widely published author of all time and in any