To celebrate the Sidney Lumet centennial, I reflected on the director's filmography and tried to surmise which of his films had the biggest impact on me. In retrospect, I wish that exercise led to one of his many masterpieces. Yet, to choose something like Dog Day Afternoon or Network would be dishonest. As much as I adore those pictures, they're not works I tend to revisit that often. Certainly not to the point where music cues, editing choices, singular line deliveries, and shot compositions are so ingrained in my mind that re-watching them is a jolt of muscle memory. You could call my relationship with the film what some folk feel for their favorite comfort foods.
When the mood is blue and the soul needs a pick-me-up, Lumet's 1974 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is a reliable treat, just frivolous and hearty enough to appease the spirit with whodunnit shenanigans. Or it could be a warm blanket of a movie, the soothing embrace of an old friend. Is it great cinema? Not really, but I wouldn't trade it for the world…
Growing up, my bedroom sat at the end of a corridor, and my parents' office was beside it. Well, it wasn't much of a workspace, serving more as a storage room for books accumulated over lives lived together and apart. On the shelves, one could find old favorites from their time as teens, history textbooks from when my parents met at college, all the volumes accrued over adulthood and a career in teaching. Though the tomes concerning art history were always tempting, my youthful interest gravitated more to the bookcase by the window, where some fiction collections found a new home.
There, shining in their cracked paperback glory, the complete works of Agatha Christie promised a quick, involving read, some ludicrous mystery and high society caricatures to elicit an acid chuckle. They were my mom's treasure from when she was a young adult obsessing over crime fiction, and they became my source of entertainment as in their promise of sweet sordid stories of murder and master detecting. In a sense, that was the passing of the torch from one generation to another, perpetuating the whodunnit fever for years to come. That's why Lumet's film always seemed to be the ultimate Christie adaptation. Because, in its fidelity, it feels the most like the source.
Cinematically speaking, that's a boon and a curse. The literary pleasures of Christie are on full display, but so are her vices. Notice the reductivism of her characterizations and the theatrical instinct in their self-expression. It's a pleasure to watch, yet the tale's unraveling feels stifled by a structure that's clearly the work of a classic crime novelist who was also a stage writer. Oh well, it's still better than Kenneth Branagh's take, as that vulgar auteur was much more predisposed to jettison Christie's text out the window and indulge in blockbuster idioms. Moreover, when comparing the two, one thing becomes clear – Lumet was a master of his craft.
Today's birthday boy didn't break the text to turn it cinematic, preferring a classicist approach that simultaneously adheres to the clichéd tenet of "less is more" - staging in a cramped space through limited shot strategies - and the indulgence of "more is more" - the acting. But before explaining it further, it might be helpful to summarize the story. Spoilers ahead, dear reader, though I doubt anyone doesn't know the particulars of Hercule Poirot's most famous case. Long story short, the Belgian detective finds himself on the titular train when, one morning, the American businessman Samuel Ratchett is found dead in his cabin. Stranded in a snowstorm, the investigator interrogates each of the train car's surviving passengers.
It turns out, every suspect is guilty, for they are collectively tied to a past tragedy that made them all broken souls in pursuit of vengeance. That's what they achieved on the Orient Express, stabbing Ratchett twelve times in ritual retribution. Though Poirot uncovers the truth from little more than the conspirators' words, the lack of physical evidence leaves the door open for a more satisfying conclusion. At the end of his revelations, the detective gifts the killers with a chance at freedom, leaving the rail line owner with the option to give the police a false story. As justice was done and the scandal would be bad business, we have a happy ending with fizzy libations as the cherry on top.
Gathering a cast of luminaries for a classy cousin to the 70s all-star disaster flick, Lumet pushes his actors to varying gradations of flair and folly, a reflection of how Christie devised the characters. By privileging long takes, the director further pulls the thespians to a theatrical register. Such choices often result in close-up grotesqueries, while blessing wider shots with a wealth of detail built upon excellent blocking skills and a director's supreme trust in his collaborators. It's a high-wire act that could leave many stars unmoored, prone to fall on their face, missing the safety net of Oscar-ready prestige. Thankfully, almost everyone delivers the goods, aided by the fabulous quirks of Tony Walton's costume design.
I could write a paragraph for each cast member, but I shall try to highlight the cream of the crop—succinctness demands it, though, if we're honest, I rarely obey its mandate.
Lauren Bacall makes for a marvelous grande dame of the American stage, grandiloquent as can be, and always putting on an act. As Mrs. Hubbard, she savors the plot's artifice, telegraphing how much the murderers are performing a play of deceit for the detective. Yet, when flashbacks give us a glimpse into the assassination, a steeliness takes over the Old Hollywood star. Suddenly, the rage and the grief are bared for all to see, as is a sense of kinship, a glimmer of compassion shared with those who lost so much from Ratchett's crimes. Wendy Hiller is also having a lot of fun, shrouded in lace and cockerel feathers, painted like a corpse, accented like a Russian drag queen.
As articulated by witty Nick Taylor, the 1958 Best Supporting Actress champion plays Princess Dragomiroff as if she were on Snatch Game. I, for one, am here for it. In contrast, Rachel Roberts takes a more psychological approach to the aristocrat's maid, though her German accent is as silly as the other woman's Muscovite stylings. One would expect this particular actress to revel in the part's parodic rigidity, but Roberts illuminates the strain of this performance-within-performance. At a brilliant moment, a cook's pride shines through in a girlish smile, a burst of nostalgic joy denouncing the woman's secret past as well as what was taken from her.
Vanessa Redgrave impresses with how impenetrable she makes the erstwhile secretary Mary Debenham. Whether center stage or acting from the sidelines, she vibrates with impish amusement, silently daring Poirot and almost gloating over his perceived errors. Yet, the shadow of trauma is there in the corner of her eye. Jean-Pierre Cassel lets himself be consumed by that pain when the pretense falls, while Anthony Perkins buzzes with the ghost of puppy love. In terms of outfit and demeanor, the latter is still an infatuated schoolboy who wants to protect his crush - pathetic yet moving in his plight. Finally, I love how sour John Gielgud makes the butler Beddoes, visibly steaming in resentment even before his part in the murder is uncovered.
I applaud those seven in particular, but I could sing the praises of their colleagues just as easily. Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset, Michael York, Sean Connery, Richard Widmark, George Coulouris, Denis Quilley, and Colin Blakely are all solid and well worth a wave of polite applause. Yes, Sidney Lumet was a fantastic director of actors, even when guiding them into the realm of crime novel live-action cartoon cum campfest. You'll notice that I left two critical names out of that list. And guess who AMPAS saw fit to honor from the cast? The film's two worst performances, of course – Albert Finney as Hercule Poirot and Ingrid Bergman as missionary Greta Ohlsson.
Starting with the smoked ham on board, Finney makes for a fascinating detective, rendering Christie's hero as a mannered gargoyle with a body language as extravagant as his accent. There's meticulousness to his work, every actorly choice pondered and studied to exhaustion, still leaving space for the pleasure of discovery and the odd man's absurdities. Of all the cinematic Poirots, he's the most bloodless and the most show-boating, too. You can feel Lumet's hand in the mystery's last act, staging Finney along a marathon-long monologue that takes full advantage of his leading man's willingness to entertain the crowd and project to the cheap seats.
Unfortunately, while fun, it fails as a compelling characterization, the dramatic center of this spectacle. Similar dismissals could be made for Ingrid Bergman's Oscar-winning performance, a hyper-demonstrative escalation of business and tics, underpinned by a Swedish accent taken to SNL-sketch extremes. You can almost see the sheen of sweat on the actress's powdered face, straining as she was to present a most undignified fool with the dignity one comes to expect from the Bergman type. As it stands, there's barely a character there to begin with, and the thespian flattens her further in her fidgety piousness. The Swedish star was right when she said Valentina Cortese should have won the Academy Award instead.
Lumet deserves a lot of blame for this disastrous duo, but he redeems himself with the remaining cast. Furthermore, it's by his hand that neither Finney nor Bergman break the film. His craft is pristine elsewhere, going far beyond the sophisticated blocking I already pointed out. Consider how he frames flashbacks, never recycling shots, opting for variations on the same compositional concept. The revisited interviews turn into spikey condescension, literally looking down on the suspects' distorted selves. And then there's the murder, colored through bright gels and dramatic shadow. It's atonement by way of death, a religious experience visualized with the appropriate gravity and claustrophobia, menacing yet trapped in the sorrows reflected on the murderer's merciless faces.
That the director achieves all this without betraying the train's sinuous geography is a testament to his supreme talent, capable of finding visual variety in the most limited stages. The production design deserves equal praise, of course, though I suspect the effect wouldn't be nearly as striking without the directorial choice to downplay the glamour of the setting in favor of a matter-of-fact discomfort. Geoffrey Unsworth's Best Cinematography nomination is overboard but not entirely undeserved. Similar choices percolate through the soundscape, in how Richard Rodney Bennett's score alternates between the main theme's propulsive pep and the sinister sibilant of murder scenes.
Perhaps this is how one better appreciates a director's genius. By looking at Lumet's most superficial success, one grasps the sophistication of his strategies, capable of elevating even the most perfunctory of studio delights. And yes, it is delightful to the very end, finishing on a champagne toast that's like a breath of relief and a curtain call wrapped in one. On the cineaste's centenary, I too wish to raise a glass. To a master filmmaker, a genius beyond compare whose brilliance transcended studio-bound limitations, going from an Old Hollywood system to a new industry and the new millennium, entertaining countless souls along the way and haunting many more. Here's to Sidney Lumet!
Murder on the Orient Express is streaming on Paramount Plus, Fubo, Hoopla, Showtime, and Kanopy. You can also rent and buy it on most major platforms.