- I have gathered you all here to solve a crime. The injustice in question is no mere murder, but rather the creation of the film known as Murder on the Orient Express. The list of possible suspects contains some prominent names indeed. After all, is it not the case that Albert Finney, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, and Richard Widmark were among the best actors of their eras? Likewise, who among us does not enjoy the work of talented character actors Martin Balsam, Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Cassel, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Rachel Roberts, and Michael York? But it would be remiss of me not also to mention cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth, director Sidney Lumet, and Agatha Christie herself. How could any one of these people, let alone all of them, have produced this film unless...there was a conspiracy!
- Ah, but you are right to be shocked at such a suggestion. Indeed, this reviewer taxed his little grey cells for some time before he finally understood the implications of what was sitting in front of his very eyes. It is, I fear, the only explanation for how the director of such great films as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network could subject the audience to dozens of exterior train shots and belaboring scenes in which all twelve murderers stab a knife or clink their glasses. Likewise, what else could explain the cinematographer for 2001: A Space Odyssey saturating the lighting to the point of obnoxiousness? And would Christie, one of the most prolific and popular authors of all time, really have her star sleuth permit murderers to get away with their crime, no matter how justified it may have been? No, my friends, it is all too much to swallow. Sure, some of the performances, especially those of Bacall, Bergman, and Widmark, are not particularly bad, but they serve primarily as a contrast to the rest of the tragically disappointing production. It is a criminal calamity of the highest order, and one that I do not care to dwell on further. I bid you adieu.
