My Interdimensional Chaos: REVIEW: Murder on the Orient Express

Murder on the Orient Express
Author: Agatha Christie

Over the last couple of years I have been working my way through Agatha Christie's writing in publication order. Agatha has been my favorite author since I was 9 and spent a summer reading through some old Poirot paperbacks I found at a garage sale.

I have worked my way through several novels and collections of short stories, and the latest read in my All Things Christie quest is: Murder on the Orient Express, one of Agatha Christie's most famous mysteries. Orient Express has been adapted for radio, film, television...even a graphic novel and a video game. In my opinion, it's one of the best murder mystery stories ever written.

Murder on the Orient Express was first published in the UK in January 1934. Later that year it was published in the US under the title Murder in the Calais Coach.

The basics: Hercule Poirot is abroad when he is called back to London unexpectedly. He boards a train filled with an interesting mix of passengers. Unfortunately, the train is forced to stop due to snow blocking the tracks. The next morning it is discovered that there is more than snow causing problems -- one of the passengers has been murdered. (cue dramatic music stab here)

I find this story an interesting and creative mystery. A train full of passengers. Snow strands the train in a remote spot, making it nearly impossible for anyone to get onto the train and murder someone, and equally as impossible for anyone to kill and then leave the train. So, the murderer must still be on the train....but who is it? A passenger? A railway employee? Hercule Poirot is soon on the case to use his little grey cells to ferret out the killer!

Pretty silly for someone to commit a murder on a train with Hercule Poirot on board! Big mistake!

I listened to the audio book version (HarperAudio) of this story. I finally listened to an Poirot novel narrated by David Suchet!!!! And he did a superb job!! I loved every minute of it!

Now that I have finished the audio book, I'm going to go watch film and television adaptations and decide which one I like the best! This is one of my favorite Christie novels. I'm going to enjoy reading and watching just about everything based on it that I can find before moving on to the next story in my Christie quest!

Reviews of film/television adaptations:

1974 - This film adaptation is a real gathering of classic film actors. Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, Ingrid Bergman and others! I did not particularly enjoy Albert Finney as Poirot, but this adaptation did a fairly good job in sticking with Christie's plot.

It is available to watch for free on youtube:

2001 - IMHO, this adaptation makes ridiculous changes in the story including bringing it into the modern era and giving Poirot a weird, useless love interest angle. This movie was made for television, and I found it to be awful. Strange casting choices -- like casting Meredith Baxter as Mrs. Hubbard -- and bad acting really made this hard for me to watch. Alfred Molina plays Poirot. While I like Molina's acting in other things, he was a miscast for Poirot. 20 minutes of the movie at the start was wasted on non-essential, silly things. That time would have been better spent actually developing and strengthening the plot and characterizations from the actual story. Add to that way too many ridiculous pop culture references thrown in at points where it made no sense. Things like: "Yes, I'm familiar with the Armstrong case. It was as big as O.J." What a stupid line! Just a mess. Yuck. Now, this is just my personal opinion. By all means watch for yourself and decide. Others may love this. I did not.

Available to watch for free on Youtube:

2010 - Episode of Poirot (Season 12, Ep 3):

This is a very dark episode of Poirot, perhaps because it was aired in the final season. The story is essentially intact, with just a few changes. Very well done. And, as always, David Suchet is perfect as Poirot, even in episodes obviously darkened a bit to lead to the end of the series. |

This episode is available for free on Youtube: