All month long, we're celebrating the Queen of Crime as she and her works appeared on screen, with a grand finale of five Murder on the Orient Expresses the first full week of November. Today, and all this week, we're looking at the main source of her bread and butter, the little Belgian himself, Hercule Poirot. Yesterday, we talked about 1965's The Alphabet Murders; today....:
dir: John Guillermin
The Detective
Peter Ustinov as Hercule Poirot
The Victim
Lois Chiles as Linnet Ridgeway
The Suspects
Bette Davis as Mrs. Van Schuyler
Mia Farrow as Jacqueline de Bellefort
Jon Finch as Jim Ferguson
Olivia Hussey as Rosalie Otterbourne
George Kennedy as Andrew Pennington
Angela Lansbury as Salome Otterbourne
Simon MacCorkindale as Simon Doyle
Maggie Smith as Miss Bowers
Jack Warden as Dr. Ludwig Bessner
With
Harry Andrews as Barnstable
I.S. Johar as Manager of the Karnak
David Niven as Colonel Race
1974's Murder on the Orient Express was a hit - admiration from critics, the 11th highest-grossing film of its year, an Oscar, even the approval of Agatha Christie, who never liked film adaptations of her works. It was only natural that the producers would want to produce a follow-up, using the same formula: glamorous period costumes and sets, an exotic locale, an all-star cast. And so they did, four years later, with this: the second EMI Christie caper, the third and last Christie flick to get Oscar attention, and my personal favorite....Death on the Nile.
