Murder on the Orient Express (1974)

You just gotta feel sorry for Albert Finney - there he is trying so hard to be a finicky and cute Poirot and audiences say, "well, I guess that's pretty good." Then in 1989, along comes David Suchet in the television Poirot series and it's quite clear to all how silly the Finney interpretation is. Ah well, poor Al.

As for the rest of this buffet of walk-ons, the intro with the clippings of the Armstrong case was mesmerizing and got my hopes up high. Way TOO high, it turns out. The remainder of the film was just plain formulaic. Since I haven't read the Christie novel, I have no idea whose fault that is: Christie’s or the filmmaker’s. Well, actually, I believe that the filmmaker is always at fault, even if the source material itself is as predictable as a Roadrunner cartoon. I mean, who forced them to FILM it?

C-