Powerful

Best movie ever!

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The nostalgic 1970's brought a modern twist to the old fashioned values that took America by storm in a turbulent era. Films like "Airport", "The Sting" and "What's Up Doc?" seem like they could have been made 40 years before, and only slight modern twists made them appear current. For the first of the Hercules Poirot murder mysteries, an all-star cast was hired, many of them veterans and many of them still quite in demand. This was the one and only opportunity for Albert Finney to play the part of the sly Belgian detective, and he's quite different from Peter Ustinov who played the part in half a dozen films, both for the cinema and for television.With a lemon puckered voice hardly musical (even though he sang in two films), Finney is less bumbling than Ustinov, but that doesn't mean that the comedy isn't there. He is much more direct, solemnly business like, and in a sense, more obviously shrewd. James Coco brilliantly spoofed Finney the following year in "Murder By Death". Surrounding him is an international cast who obviously knew that this film would be something special, and a chance to work with actors they might never have the chance to work with again. Like subsequent entries in the Pierot series (and other Agatha Christie stories), this starts off with a prelude seemingly unrelated to the main story, but as I found out by watching the others, nothing should be dismissed. Every move, perhaps every prop, is a clue, giving the audience ample opportunity to guess who did it. There's plenty of suspicion cast on everybody, even those who seem to be completely innocent.The victim? Richard Widmark. The suspects? Many. Annoying Lauren Bacall, Bible spouting Ingrid Bergman, imperious royal Wendy Hiller, her maid/companion (Rachel Roberts), suave nobleman Michael York, nervous mama's boy Anthony Perkins, graceful butler John Gielgud, nasty American businessman Martin Balsam, among others (Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave). They are all stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere when the murder is discovered. Of course, the mixture of personalities creates additional conflict, with the recurring joke of everybody desperately trying to avoid Bacall every time she appears, and the multiple error of Finney assumed to be French, not Belgian.A mention of Garbo puts attention on fellow Swede Bergman, winning her third Oscar for her greatly underplayed performance. With a cast like this, it's easy to get lost in who everybody is, but this is done in such an amusing manner that it never gets dull. It's a fully gorgeous production with every detail practically perfect. I can't imagine the 2017 remake topping this in any way.

In December 1935, when his train is stopped by deep snow, detective Hercule Poirot is called on to solve a murder that occurred in his car the night before. With the New Murder on the Orient Express being out in Theaters for weeks now and since i'm going to go and see it tomorrow i thought that this would be the perfect time to review the original as well. But unfortunately i was very disappointed with this movie i found it boring, dumb and above all the acting was trash. Especially from Albert Finney who was over reacting as Poirot and almost sounded as Gollum from LOTR the same goes for Lauren Bacall and her character was so annoying as for the actual murder? The way that this particular person dies was so over the top and almost hilarious in a bad way and i wasn't surprised when the killer was shown and who did the crime it was kinda obvious after a while. Overall Murder on the Orient Express (1974) is an overrated and boring mess of a film that tries so much and yet it fails in every level and unfortunately it shows how some viewers and critics have stuck on the Past and think that everything that was made back then still is fresh and new in this Century well this movie is not fresh and definitely not good.

Decent mystery plot, intelligent but not intense flow of the story. Story revolves around the murder motives, but personally I feel not all motives were strong enough to carry out the murder, like the chauffeur. And how the detective knows all the character's background is also a mystery that wasn't solved.Like sherlock holmes used to keep a journal for all the crime happened in past with details. But how this detective remembers that god knows. Most of the charterer's played well deserved role, specially detective poirot. Ending is a twist and I liked that. A nice movie to watch who loves classic mystery films.

From Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns to the makers of "Taken" there is something about European productions and their set locations in a movie that makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land as an American and Murder On The Orient Express has this in spades. It's engagingly balanced by its character driven story making it more gripping and entertaining though you do have to pay attention due to its use of flashbacks in connecting the dots.I saw this movie in the theaters in '75 when I was a teen and was just taken to another world that felt dangerous with the "you're on your own" aspect of traveling abroad (without the traveler's diarrhea) while running into some of the most quirky, creepy, eccentric and odd behaving characters that one might expect to meet on a train in Europe in the '30's. This seemingly eccentric behavior runs interference in hiding the truth about why and what would bring together on one train 12 oddball characters who seem to have nothing in common. Poirot slowly and diabolically works his way in his questioning of the 12 to make the connections.That ensemble of convincingly cagey acting characters is what the audience and Poirot must break through aided by effectively and obviously placed brief flashbacks to confessions and character back story each character reveals that at first were obscured by first impressions. Of course Poirot humorously dismisses with smart ass and equally quirky European flare and sophistication the suspect's phony behavior as a form of personal interrogation to rattle them in order to draw out more detail that points to the real murderer. Standouts in this form of re-remembering what was said outside the context of first impressions at the start of the movie is performances by oddly pasty pale complected Anthony Perkins and Ingrid Bergman's nervously, devout humanitarian character. The performances are not from your typical B-movie detective who done it.As a teen I was totally confused by these flashbacks and line of questioning even though I had read several Agatha Christie novels including "Murder On The Orient Express". The book had no flashbacks. This movie actually creates a whole other more interesting and character driven way to tell a who done it detective murder mystery in a most elegant and stylish way while remaining brilliantly grounded and believable by the performances of top shelf actors in gorgeous and authentic looking '30's era costumes.Through the years I've had to watch this movie several times in TV re-runs to understand the connections provided by the flashbacks even though I already knew the surprise ending. It's still fun to watch and I can't wait for the US release of the Blu-ray. I wish I could give the same review of the 2017 remake I saw last night.