Jacobi is set to turn eighty next year – and, as far as I can tell, there’s not exactly a surfeit of first-fiddle movie roles for guys that age.
I know Poirot is a frustratingly annoying character at times, but Finney made him downright insufferable.
I never saw David Suchet’s TV version. They made every book, so it exists. Did anyone see it? Was it good?
As a train fan, I really wish they used a locomotive that looks like it could be from the correct continent. The one shown in the trailer looks distinctly American.
David Suchet was Poirot. His appearance and performance were 100% perfectly in line with the character in the books. As Jeremy Brett was to Sherlock, Joan Hickson was to Miss Marple, or Colin Firth was to Mr. Darcy, so was David Suchet to Poirot.
Having said all that: you know, I’m not sure I saw his version of MotOO. They left it until pretty late in the run. Might have been during the years I didn’t have a TV.
Love it, but it’s a little wordy. Why not just use the title of the first US edition of the book: Murder in the Calais Coach?
I’ll look forward to the movie. I loved the 1974 version, and I’d like to see how this one measures up.
Suchet was excellent. But I hated the fat suit/structure that he wore. Poirot was described in the books as having (if my memory is correct) “a touch of embonpoint” which means he was a little overweight. That structure made him look like The Penguin from some angles. His regular body with, perhaps, a little tummy added, would have been just fine.
+1
I think the Ian Carmichael Lord Peter Wimseys are still pretty watchable. I rewatched them about ten years ago. And they are from the early 1970s.
But I loved Albert Finney as Poirot. FWIW, Dame Agatha herself said that the '74 version of Murder on the [Far East Asian] Express was her personal favorite of all the adaptions of her books.
Amusing. But it is’t the *most *politically incorrect title that Dame Agatha ever penned!
Because neither series was made as a direct adaptation.
Even so, remember she hated Poirot. She had a stand-in for herself who appeared in some of the Poirot stories, by name Ariadne Oliver; her detective was a Finn, and she was always fuming about why she made him a Finn and how his mannerisms were a pain in the ass.
For myself, I thought Finney’s portrayal was a travesty at first, but I have gotten used to it on further viewings. He was too tall, but they did use some camera angle tricks to make him seem shorter.
Nitpick: “Orient” in the name of the train refers to West Asia not East Asia. The line didn’t go any further east than Istanbul (or Stamboul)
Nitpick 2: Since “Orient Express” is the proper noun denoting the route/train, it seems to me an excess of PC-ness to not use it. But that’s just me.
I wonder how far/deep the hate really went. It has certainly become widely known, like Conan-Doyle hating Sherlock Holmes.
I know she is on record disliking him, but she did continue writing his novels well past the point of needing to.
For that matter, is “orient” really non-PC? I get that “oriental”, as applied to people, is out of favor; the reason I hear given is that it’s offensive to use the same term for people as you would for an object like a rug. Is “orient” completely taboo now, for things as well as people? It seems to me that if we start calling them “Asian Express” and “Asian rugs” that we’re back where we started.
It’s not a topic that comes up very often, and I know such matters are not governed by purely rational reasons; I’m just curious.
I have never heard that “Orient” or “Oriental” are in any way offensive when applied to things. The issue is calling people “orientals.”
Has anyone suggested that “Orient Express” is offensive? Because that would be absurd.
I think people are vastly over estimating how popular Agatha Christie is this days.
I will have to rummage around for them.
The Poirot series is currently on Netflix, so I binged on the whole series =)
I have this box by Samsung that hooks into my wifi and gives me Netflix, Amazon Prime and several others [that I don’t have accounts with like Hulu] so I have pretty much quit watching regular cable other than for special stuff [I keep track of what is going to be on for movies or documentaries/shows I occasionally like to catch.] I have gone to mainly using music as my background instead of random TV or cable shows.
To me, the bigger jarring element in that TV-movie was the reason Poirot was travelling from Istanbul in the first place. Only partly because he had just finished another investigation, but more because he had been visiting his on-again/off-again girlfriend, a femme-fatale jewel thief, who he occasionally drops in to sleep with, but won’t marry because he has commitment issues. Sheesh. That’s not the Poirot I know.
I found the David Suchet adaptation rather unsatisfying, to be honest. The religious overtones just seemed weird and out of place–Christie was never a particularly religious writer–and Poirot came off as much more Law and Order Must Be Observed than he does in the novel. Making M. Bouc an annoying fanboy rather than a genuine friend also seemed like one of those changes people make just because they can, without much of a good reason behind it.
I don’t know about Branagh’s moustache. Or his hair color, for that matter. In the books, Poirot explicitly dyes his hair when he starts to go gray. But other than those quibbles, I’ll give this one a chance. Could be fun.
What’s more, the [Venice Simplon] Orient Express is a company which still exists and operates the same train under that name.
So you did have a motive!
I think I’ve seen all of these at least once, and this stern religiosity ISTM only appears in the last three seasons or so. There was no more Hastings or Miss Lemon, no more badinage, and a lot more seriousness.
I always thought, without any particular evidence, that the religious overtones were added at Suchet’s request. There seems to be a different writer for each episode, at least in those years, which could also account for the uneven tone.
What religious overtones were added?