The release of a new adaptation of this famous story a couple of years ago reminded me that I had yet to view any version of it. Yet after some research the best version seems to be this one directed by Sidney Lumet who have come to be one of my favorite directors of the era. Naturally it also features a star-studded cast for its many characters, led by Sean Connery and including Ingrid Bergman is a small supporting role.

The famous detective Hercule Poirot is travelling from Istanbul to London on the equally famous Orient Express train. The train seems especially crowded that night with all manner of distinguished guests but Poirot’s friend Signor Bianchi who is also travelling is a director of the company that owns the line and helps arrange space. On board a guest who claims to be an American businessman offers Poirot a great deal of money to protect him as he has received anonymous death threats. Poirot declines but then one night just as the train is stopped due to snowdrift the man is murdered. Fearful of scandal, Bianchi asks Poirot to solve the case before they arrive at the next station. At the crime scene, Poirot almost immediately realizes that the dead man is actually Lanfranco Cassetti, a criminal mastermind responsible for the kidnapping and subsequent death of the infant daughter of a rich family in England a few years ago. The case was major news and the grief led to the deaths of the parents and a maid as well who was wrongfully accused of being complicit. This means that the dead man had plenty of enemies who would want him dead.

Just as I would expect from a film by Lumet, I cannot emphasize enough how much I loved how this was staged and shot. The opening scenes set the atmosphere perfectly with the wonderful shots of Istanbul and Lumet demonstrates his understanding that the glamor of the Orient Express itself is a major part of the appeal. The camera lovingly lingers on the train to take it in on all angles and it takes nearly half an hour before the journey even starts. The level of luxury, costumes and larger than life characters, Poirot with his exaggerated Frenchness, even though he is Belgian, the elderly Russian with her black feathers, Connery as the archetypical British military officer and gentleman, are all part of the magic. At the same time, this is of course a murder mystery and so the film keeps dropping clues and details right from the beginning. A half-heard whispered conversation between the British officer and his lover, the businessman’s stammering and nervous secretary, the noises and disturbances during that eventful night. This is a perfectly crafted film that fully plays into its genre and setting.

I certainly don’t want to give away the key secret at the heart of this story so there’s not much that I can say about that here. It is certainly quite clever but it is one of those situations that are so elaborately complicated that no one would ever do it in real life. Also the train setting makes for a novel version of the familiar plot device to trap all of the potential suspects in a single location, and how convenient it is that they even have a doctor on hand to assist who is himself above suspicion. But I don’t think the real train has so few passengers and staff. I do like the character of Poirot and this is indeed my first encounter with him in any story. I love how he overstates his own ostentatiousness to make the suspects underestimate him. His primary skill here however is interrogation as he carefully questions the suspects while making it look like just casual conversation. Then he uses his superior knowledge on everything from language and geography to names and social roles to ferret out inconsistences and evasions in their answers. These days it’s rare to see in fiction a case cracked mainly by sorting out the truth from interrogations as it’s easier to depict physical evidence instead.

In the end this of course a murder mystery, perhaps the archetypal murder mystery, played out completely straight. It’s light on the emotions, even with the moral quandary at its center being that the victim is himself a particularly nefarious murderer, so it really is all about the fun of figuring out the truth alongside the detective and trying to see for yourself if there are any holes in his reasoning. As expected of a great classic like this, it truly is airtight and perfect and combined with the impressive craftsmanship of Lumet, makes for a highly engaging experience.