“Murder on the Orient Express (1974 film)”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Murder on the Orient Express is a 1974 British-American mystery film directed by Sidney Lumet, produced by John Brabourne and Richard B. Goodwin, and based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie.

The film features the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney), who is asked to investigate the murder of an American business tycoon aboard the Orient Express train. The suspects are portrayed by a notably all-star cast, including Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, Jacqueline Bisset, Anthony Perkins and Wendy Hiller. The screenplay is by Paul Dehn as well as an uncredited Anthony Shaffer{{not in citation given|reason=source says Shaffer wrote a scr-play, not that any of it was used in the film|date=February 2019}}.^[4]

The film was commercially and critically well-received, as well as receiving six nominations at the 47th Academy Awards: Best Actor (Finney), Best Supporting Actress (Bergman), Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Costume Design. Of these nominations, Bergman was the only winner.

Plot

In December 1935, Hercule Poirot is returning to England aboard the Orient Express, encountering his friend Signor Bianchi, a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (International Sleeping Car Company), which owns the line. Aside from Poirot, the other passengers travelling on the Calais coach are: Mrs. Harriet Hubbard, a fussy, talkative, multiple-widowed American; enigmatic American businessman Samuel Ratchett, with his English manservant Beddoes and secretary/translator Hector McQueen; elderly Russian Princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her German maid Hildegarde Schmidt; Hungarian diplomat Count Rudolf Andrenyi and his wife Elena; British Indian Army officer Col. John Arbuthnot; Mary Debenham, a teacher of English in Baghdad; Greta Ohlsson, a timid Swedish missionary to Africa on a fund-raising trip; Italian-American car salesman Antonio Foscarelli; and Cyrus B. Hardman, an American theatrical agent.

The morning after the train's departure from Istanbul, Ratchett tries to secure Poirot's services for $15,000 ({{Inflation|US|15000|1935|r=-3|fmt=eq}}) since he has received many death threats, but Poirot finds the case of little interest and refuses. That night the train is caught in heavy snows en route through Yugoslavia. Poirot is disturbed numerous times during the night. The next morning Ratchett is found stabbed to death in his cabin. Bianchi entreats Poirot to solve the case. They enlist the help of Dr. Constantine, a Greek medical doctor who was travelling in another coach with Bianchi as the only other passenger and thus is not a suspect. Pierre Michel, the French conductor of the Calais car, also assists the investigation, as well as being a suspect.

Dr. Constantine's examination reveals Ratchett was stabbed 12 times. Some wounds were slight, but at least three of them could have resulted in death. The stopped watch in the victim's pocket, as well as Poirot's reconstructed timeline of passenger activities the night before, indicate that Ratchett was murdered at about 1:15 a.m. The train had stopped, surrounded by fresh snow, before then. There are no tracks in the snow and the doors to the other cars were locked, so the murderer is almost certainly still among the Calais passengers. Also discovered at the scene of the crime are a pipe-cleaner, a woman's handkerchief with the initial "H", and a fragment of a burned letter. Upon examining the letter, Poirot discovers that Ratchett was actually Cassetti, a Mafia gangster who five years before carried out the kidnapping and killing of Daisy Armstrong, the infant daughter of wealthy British Army Colonel Hamish Armstrong who had settled in Long Island, New York with his American wife Sonia. Overcome with grief, the pregnant Mrs. Armstrong went into labour early and died while giving birth to a stillborn baby. A French maidservant named Paulette, suspected of complicity in the kidnapping, committed suicide, only to be found innocent later. Colonel Armstrong, consumed by these tragedies, later killed himself as well. Cassetti fled the country with the ransom, leaving his partner to be executed, and was only revealed to be the leader of the kidnapping plot on the eve of the execution.

Poirot, Constantine, and Bianchi begin their interrogation of the passengers. They learn that: McQueen was the son of the District Attorney who prosecuted the case and was very fond of Mrs. Armstrong; Beddoes, before going into service, a British Army batman; Countess Andrenyi is of German descent and her maiden name is Grunwald; Greta Ohlsson has a limited knowledge of the English language but has spent some time in America fund-raising; Pierre Michel's daughter died five years earlier of scarlet fever; Col. Arbuthnot is going through a divorce and intends to marry Mary Debenham as soon as proceedings are over. Arbuthnot also displays an extensive knowledge of Armstrong's military decorations. When Poirot interviews Princess Dragomiroff he discovers she is a great friend of the now-bedridden actress Linda Arden, Mrs Armstrong's mother; the Princess was Sonia's godmother. He learns that also in the household were a butler, a secretary, a cook, a chauffeur and a nursemaid to Daisy. Poirot then flatters Hildegarde Schmidt by saying he knows a good cook when he sees one, and asks for a photo of the maid Paulette, with whom Miss Schmidt was friendly. Foscarelli, when asked, vehemently denies ever having been in private service as a chauffeur. Hardman reveals he is, in fact, a Pinkerton detective hired to guard Cassetti. When shown the photo of Paulette, he breaks down and reveals he was a policeman in America, was in love with Paulette, and feels responsible for her suicide.

After concluding his investigation, Poirot gathers the suspects in the dining car to present his solution. He has formulated two possible scenarios to explain the murder. The first, which he calls the simple solution, is based on several clues suggesting that Cassetti's murder was the result of a mafia feud. Poirot analyses his second solution — referring to it as the more complex of the two — according to which every suspect has a link to the Armstrong case, thus having sufficient motive for the murder. The Princess had dodged the answers to Poirot's questions either by saying she did not remember or by word association: for example when asked Mrs Armstrong's maiden name, she replied "Greenwood", the English for "Grunwald", allowing Poirot to deduce that Countess Elena Andrenyi was, in fact, Helena, Mrs Armstrong's sister, and Count Andrenyi her brother-in-law. The Princess also claimed the secretary's name was "Miss Freebody", so Poirot deduces the secretary was in fact Mary Debenham (as in the London department store Debenham and Freebody). By flattering Miss Schmidt, he confirmed that she had been cook for the Armstrongs. Aside from the obvious motives of the Princess, Miss Schmidt, Mary, McQueen, the Count and Countess and Hardman, Poirot presents the motives of the other suspects: Pierre was Paulette's father; Beddoes was Colonel Armstrong's army batman and the family butler; Miss Ohlsson was Daisy's nursemaid (and inadvertently revealed her actual knowledge of English by showing that she understood difficult words); Col. Arbuthnot was a close army friend of Armstrong's; Foscarelli was the Armstrongs' private chauffeur; Mrs Hubbard is, in reality, Linda Arden, Mrs Armstrong's mother. Beddoes had drugged Cassetti and each of the passengers then stabbed him in turn (Both Andrenyis had together jointly stabbed Cassetti-making 12 not 13 stab wounds.) Arbuthnot planted the pipe-cleaner, while the handkerchief is the Princess's (a Cyrillic "N" - for "Natalia" - resembles our letter "H"). All of the incidents which disturbed Poirot's sleep were contrived for the sole purpose of confusing him about the time of death.

When Poirot finishes his explanation, everyone is silent. Poirot suggests Bianchi should choose which explanation they present to the police: the simple or the complex one. Bianchi decides that Cassetti deserved everything he got, and the simple solution will be more than enough to satisfy the Yugoslavian police. Poirot agrees with the decision, and he departs to prepare his report to the police, even though he admits he will struggle with his conscience. The train is freed of the snow and leaves as the passengers celebrate at the outcome of the investigation.

Cast

Production

Development

Agatha Christie had been quite displeased with some film adaptations of her works made in the 1960s, and accordingly was unwilling to sell any more film rights. When Nat Cohen, chairman of EMI Films, and producer John Brabourne attempted to get her approval for this film, they felt it necessary to have Lord Mountbatten of Burma (of the British Royal Family and also Brabourne's father-in-law) help them broach the subject. In the end, according to Christie's husband Max Mallowan, "Agatha herself has always been allergic to the adaptation of her books by the cinema, but was persuaded to give a rather grudging appreciation to this one."

According to one report, Christie gave approval because she liked the previous films of the producers, Romeo and Juliet and Tales of Beatrix Potter.^[5]

Casting

Christie's biographer Gwen Robyns quoted her as saying, "It was well made except for one mistake. 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?"^[6]

Cast members eagerly accepted upon first being approached. Lumet went to Sean Connery first, saying that if you get the biggest star, the rest will come along. Bergman was initially offered the role of Princess Dragomiroff, but instead requested to play Greta Ohlsson. Lumet said:

The entire budget was provided by EMI. The cost of the cast came to ₤554,100.^[2]

Shooting

Unsworth shot the film in Panavision. Interiors were filmed at Elstree Studios. Exterior shooting was mostly done in France in 1973, with a railroad workshop near Paris standing in for Istanbul station. The scenes of the train proceeding through central Europe were filmed in the Jura Mountains on the then-recently closed railway line from Pontarlier to Gilley, with the scenes of the train stuck in snow being filmed in a cutting near Montbenoît.^[8] There were concerns about a lack of snow in the weeks preceding the scheduled shooting of the snowbound train, and plans were made to truck in large quantities of snow at considerable expense. However, heavy snowfall the night before the shooting made the extra snow unnecessary — just as well, as the snow-laden backup trucks had themselves become stuck in the snow.^[9]

Music

Richard Rodney Bennett's Orient Express theme has been reworked into an orchestral suite and performed and recorded several times. It was performed on the original soundtrack album by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden under Marcus Dods. The piano soloist was the composer himself.

Reception

Box office

Critical response

The film received positive reviews upon release and currently holds a 91% "Fresh" rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 7.7/10.^[13] Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars, writing that the film "provides a good time, high style, a loving salute to an earlier period of filmmaking".^[14] The New York Times{{'}} chief critic of the era, Vincent Canby, pointed out that

Agatha Christie

Christie later said that this and Witness for the Prosecution were the only adaptations of her books that she liked.^[5]

Awards and nominations

See also

References

1. ^BBFC: Murder on the Orient Express Linked 2014-08-24
2. ^¹Can film-makers Carry On?Bell, Brian. The Observer 11 August 1974: 11.
3. ^Boost for studiosThe Guardian 9 July 1975: 5.
4. ^{{cite news| last=Lewis| first=Paul| title=Anthony Shaffer, 75, Author Of Long-Running 'Sleuth,' Dies| date=12 November 2001| newspaper=The New York Times| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/12/theater/anthony-shaffer-75-author-of-long-running-sleuth-dies.html| accessdate=29 April 2015}}
5. ^¹Mills, Nancy. The case of the vanishing mystery writer: Christie liked only two of the 19 movies made from her books. Chicago Tribune 30 October 1977: h44.
6. ^Sanders, Dennis and Len Lovallo. [https://books.google.com/books?id=lrfyAAAAMAAJ&dq=The+Agatha+Christie+Companion%3A+The+Complete+Guide+to+Agatha+Christie%27s+Life+and+Work&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=Albert+Finney The Agatha Christie Companion: The Complete Guide to Agatha Christie's Life and Work], (1984), pgs. 438–441. Subscription required {{ISBN|978-0425118450}}
7. ^{{cite book| last=Chandler| first=Charlotte| title=Ingrid: Ingrid Bergman, A Personal Biography| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PyDOIThaF0EC&dq=Ingrid%3A+Ingrid+Bergman%2C+A+Personal+Biography&q=orient+express#v=snippet&q=orient%20express&f=false| publisher=Simon & Schuster| date=February 20, 2007| location=New York| isbn=978-1416539148| pages=19, 21, 294}}
8. ^Trains Oubliés Vol.2: Le PLM by José Banaudo, p. 54 (French). Editions du Cabri, Menton, France
9. ^DVD documentary "Making Murder on the Orient Express: The Ride"
10. ^¹Alexander Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties, Harrap, 1985 p. 130
11. ^{{cite web |url=http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/1974/0MOOE.php |publisher=The Numbers |title=Murder on the Orient Express, Box Office Information |accessdate=5 January 2012}}
12. ^{{cite news| title=Murder on the Orient Express' tops US charts| newspaper=The Times| date=11 February 1975 |location=London|page=7}}
13. ^Movie Reviews for Murder on the Orient Express. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 13 November 2017.
14. ^Roger Ebert reviews Murder on the Orient Express. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 23 September 2012.
15. ^{{cite news |last=Canby |first=Vincent |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D01EED7133BE63BBC4D51DFB767838F669EDE |title=Crack 'Orient Express' Clicks as Film |newspaper=The New York Times |date=25 November 1974 |accessdate=1 June 2016}}

External links