Poirot investigates the murder of a shady American businessman stabbed in his compartment on the Orient Express when it is blocked by a blizzard in Croatia.Poirot investigates the murder of a shady American businessman stabbed in his compartment on the Orient Express when it is blocked by a blizzard in Croatia.Poirot investigates the murder of a shady American businessman stabbed in his compartment on the Orient Express when it is blocked by a blizzard in Croatia.
- Lieutenant Morris
- (as Tristan Shepherd)
- Hector MacQueen
- (as Brian J Smith)
- Pierre Michel
- (as Denis Menochet)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe majority of the episode was filmed at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, where the design team built a believable replica of an Orient Express carriage.
- GoofsMr. Bouc compares one of the characters to the "Bismark" battleship. The Bismark was laid down in 1936 only, launched in 1939 and commissioned in 1940.
- Quotes
Hercule Poirot: [furious] You people! With your kangaroo jury, your kangaroo justice! You had no right to take the law into your own hands!
Hildegarde Schmidt: M-m-monsieur Poirot, she was *five years old*!
Caroline Hubbard: We were good civilized people, and then evil got over the wall, and we looked to the law for justice, and the law let us down.
Hercule Poirot: No! No, you behave like this and we become just... savages in the street! The juries and executioners, they elect themselves! No, it is medieval! The rule of law, it must be held high and if it falls you pick it up and hold it even higher! For all of society, all civilized people will have nothing to shelter them if it is destroyed!
- ConnectionsFeatured in David Suchet on the Orient Express (2010)
The main twist here is that unlike most Poirot-themed works, this really isn't a whodunnit by any stretch of the imagination. While the 1974 version keeps the viewer in the dark about at least Poirot's own reasoning until the big triumphant showdown, the 2010 adaptation gradually let's the viewer in on the solution, and really does not make much of a mystery about it. Originally I thought it was a bit of a let-down, which it is if you expect the usual Orient Express arc of confusion about the various clues and statements and suspects followed by Poirot's Grand Revelation.
However, the point of this Orient Express adventure is not to solve a murder, but to explore much deeper notions of justice and the law, revenge, multiculturalism, and doing what is right. The theme is introduced right at the opening scene, when Poirot's genius at solving a crime proves to have disastrous consequences. We then see him react to a stoning of a woman in Istanbul, and these two events frame his own path as he solves the mystery of what happens in the Orient Express.
In the course of this, Suchet shows some of the finest acting I have seen from him (and that says a lot), thinking about it still sends chills down my spine. He is a remarkable actor, and he shows us some sides of Poirot that are fresh and new and interesting (Christie purists might say that they are also not authentic, but it would seem reasonable to frame the wrestling with morality of a Belgian gentleman of the time in the context of Catholicism, which helpfully provides visuals and props for it, too, so I find it excusable).
In summary, the whodunnit crime bit is being handled mostly perfunctorily, the focus of this piece is on the morality surrounding this crime, and here it relies heavily on the enormous breadth and depth of Suchet to make the point. Eminently watchable, not just for fans.
- JWJanneck
- Jul 23, 2010