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 script (by Stewart Harcourt) gives Suchet a chance to be more brilliant than ever, and modifies many details of the story in order to make it both more concise and in its own way more moving and more plausible. The1974 film version with Finney turned the whole thing into high camp—not a bad idea! But this version brings new depths to the story and new resonances.
Those who object to the introduction of Catholicism, etc., seem to ignore the way this version begins: Poirot watches his own methods of "justice" go terribly wrong when a military man whom he has proved to be a liar, and whom he castigates with terrible vehemence, commits suicide in front of him. Then he witnesses the stoning of an adulteress in Ankara. Surely a man as brilliant and cultured as he must either take such experiences to heart or not be a human being worth knowing or caring about. Poirot's brain is made of grey cells, not computer circuits. He is brilliant but vain; polite and yet capable of brutality in words if not deeds; generous yet coldly formal. What's wrong with throwing a Catholic sensibility into the mix, especially when he is growing old, and his upbringing must be coming back into mind more and more? Anyway, such is his character in this version, and I find it fascinating.
Finally, a word of praise for the superb direction of the episode (Philip Martin). Acting, camera angles, lighting, pacing—all have great style and verve, and the music (Christian Henson) adds considerably to the tension and forward momentum.
In sum, I share the enthusiasm of all the others here who have found this a wonderful episode. Thank you, David Suchet, and all others involved!
- mmmarks
- Jul 15, 2010