Peter Ustinov is Suchet’s best-known predecessor in the English-speaking movie world. Charles Laughton was the first to play Poirot, appearing onstage in a 1928 production of Alibi. Other actors than Suchet have taken up the mustache before. This last challenge is the most important. And fourth, Branagh is not Belgian or in any way obviously suited to play the iconic role of Poirot. Third, Murder on the Orient Express contains the best-known (and, relatedly, the most unusual) solution to any Agatha Christie story: It will not attract many viewers who do not know it, at least at first. Second, the 1974 Sidney Lumet version was already very, very good. Any changes he made were always going to come under fire. First, Agatha Christie fans are rabidly purist snobs. We see each fine actor through the windows of the eponymous locomotive, as sweeping, luscious shots establish a unity of time, place, and action (1930s, train, murder).īranagh has faced several large challenges in constructing this film. Michelle Pfeiffer, Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, and Derek Jacobi are its megastars, while the second tier boasts Olivia Colman, Leslie Odom Jr., and Marwan Kenzari, the future “hot Jafar” of the new Aladdin. Murder on the Orient Express is a new version of a very famous mystery, repackaged as a splashy movie for the 2017 holiday season. Now, Kenneth Branagh has cast himself as the detective. A hundred nights curled up on the sofa with my sister a hundred brittle heiresses protesting their innocence a hundred perfect endings: Suchet was there for them all.

For my entire life as an Agatha Christie devotee, Suchet-with his Mephistophelian eyebrows, prim mustache, and aquiline features- was Poirot. The series Agatha Christie’s Poirotran on the British channel ITV from 1989 to 2013, starring David Suchet in every single one of its 228 episodes, many of which were feature-length or in multiple parts. Christie’s detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple are the most frequent heroes of these adaptations. The first movie came out in 1928, the first TV show in 1937.

Adaptations of Agatha Christie novels and stories for the screen constitute an enormous genre.

Poirot murder on the orient express