Murder on the Orient Express (2001 film)

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Murder on the Orient Express is a 2001 made-for-television movie, based on the 1934 novel by Agatha Christie, featuring Hercule Poirot.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Reaction
4 Other versions
5 External link

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Hercule Poirot is travelling on the Orient Express. On the journey, Poirot meets a very close friend Bouc, who works for the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits . The train is caught in heavy snows in the Balkans on the second night out from Istanbul, and American millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett is found stabbed to death the next morning.

Since the train has been surrounded by fresh snow since before the apparent time of death, and the doors to the other cars were locked, it seems that the murderer must still be among the passengers in Ratchett's car. Poirot, Bouc, and Dr. Constantine (a passenger on another car), work together to solve the case. They are aided by Pierre Michel, the middle-aged French conductor of the car.

A key to the solution is Ratchett's revealed involvement in the Armstrong tragedy in America several years earlier, in which a baby was kidnapped and then murdered. (The fictitious Armstrong case was apparently inspired by the real-life kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby son.)

[edit] Cast

Alfred Molina .... Hercule Poirot
Meredith Baxter .... Mrs. Caroline Hubbard
Leslie Caron .... Sra. Alvarado
Amira Casar .... Helena von Strauss
Nicolas Chagrin .... Pierre Michel
Tasha de Vasconcelos .... Vera Rossakoff
David Hunt .... Bob Arbuthnot
Adam James .... William MacQueen
Dylan Smith .... Tony Foscarelli
Peter Strauss .... Mr. Samuel Ratchett
Fritz Wepper .... Wolfgang Bouc
Kai Wiesinger .... Philip von Strauss
Natasha Wightman .... Mary Debenham

[edit] Reaction

Many viewers, unfamiliar with the plot, thought that the murder mystery would take place against a dramatic backdrop of a world-famous train speeding through exotic landscapes and were disappointed to find that the train is stalled in snow for most of the movie.^{[citation needed]}