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1974: Fifty Years Later / Murder On The Orient Express

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A dead body! A trainful of suspicious movie stars! Real authentic exotic locations! Sidney Lumet's all-star adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express is the ultimate comfort movie for mystery aficionados and fans of ritzy, old-fashioned Hollywood productions alike. Melanie Daniels of the Cinema Parlor Podcast is both, which makes her the ideal guest to discuss the performances of the movie's top-notch cast, the eclecticism of Lumet's filmography and how solidly Hercule Poirot's cases would hold up in court.

1974 was a landmark year for film, a convergence of exciting international cinema and the original voices of New Hollywood that still resonates 50 years later. In our new series we invite a different guest for each episode to choose a 1974 movie to talk about, ranging from giant blockbusters to minor cult curios and everything else in between.

Melanie Daniels on Twitter: twittter.com/plasticwerewolf

Cinema Parlor Podcast: twitter.com/cinemaparlor

The Pink Smoke site: www.thepinksmoke.com

John Cribbs on Twitter: twitter.com/TheLastMachine

Movie Kessler on Twitter: twitter.com/MovieKessler

The Pink Smoke on Twitter: twitter.com/thepinksmoke

Intro music: Unleash the Bastards / “Tea for Two” Outro music: Marcus Pinn / “Vegas"

Duration:: 58m
Broadcast on:: 24 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

[music] The series is 1974, 50 years later. The podcast is The Pink Smoke, your host, our Christopher Funderberg and John Cribs. And just to recap what we've been doing on this series, we have a very special guest come on and pick a movie. They came out in 1974 and is there for 50 years old. And today our special guest is one of our favorite people to talk to, Melanie Daniels. How are you doing today? I'm very well. I'm so excited to talk about this movie. I'm excited to talk about the movie with you. Why don't you go ahead and tell everyone, well, first off, why don't you tell everyone what word is 2020 for fine? Melanie Daniels, what are you up to? Any big projects coming up, anything that you want to talk about real quick? It's been a weird year thus far, and we're not that far into it. So I don't know what that means. No, it's work has been hellacious. I've actually, normally, I'm kind of not nervous to record on other people's shows, but it's not as comfortable as just on our podcast. It's very lo-fi, and it's just us being dumb. So anytime I'm on somebody else's platform, I'm like, okay, let's try to be big brained a little bit on this. It was just, you know what, this is going to be a nice thing to talk about because the year's been so hellacious. So I'm like, but what I've been doing, that's fun. I'm finally to act three in Boulder's Gate. I think I'm getting ready. I won't spoil anything, but I'm getting ready to go to the very last thing that you do in the game. They're excited, loved it, and then I've been-- I have heard only good things about that game. I love it. It's so good. Playing it, I'm doing next game plus eight on Elden Ring. That's what I mean. It's that Baldur's Gate. You know what, I wish I was into Elden Ring. It is not for me. I'm not a Souls person, though. I don't like those style games, but I think it's very pretty. It's just not my style. It's, I also hate it. I want to do a podcast with Martin Kessler about it sometimes because he's a big Souls-like fan and hates Elden Ring. And I sort of have this like, love-hate relationship. You know what, my thing with Elden, the thing with it is not that this is what this is about, but since we're talking about it. With Elden, I feel like everything looks good. It's really interesting, but for me, I need more lore, and I feel like so much of that stuff is tied into other things that you have to read about it, and it's just not-- You don't get it through gameplay. All of their games, it's like you have to play them with a fucking Reddit thread over explaining what everything is. Yeah, thank God for Reddit. I think FromSoft is the first gaming company that was like, "You know what, everybody plays games now looking up online, everything you have to do, so that's built into it." But I do hate it. I do hate all of that. It's the kind of thing, if you ask me what that game is about, I'd be like, "I don't know. There's some gods who need to be killed and other gods that don't like them." I mean, who fucking cares? It's all nonsense. But not to take us too far, Fred. What else are you doing besides Baldur's Gate 3? I'm rewatching Buffy, which I haven't done. Oh, excellent. I did not watch all of Buffy. I stopped at season 4, which is what I'm getting into now. I didn't like, this is so stupid, but I was also very, very young. Whenever I was watching season 3, I was like, "I think the mirror's kind of lame and spike isn't endless enough. I think I'm done." And I was. But I know it comes back, and I'm very excited to get to that. So I've been rewatching that amazing, again, very comforting for the soul this year. I love season 3. It has such a great ending, where everyone just takes off the robes and they're all armed up to fight. I cried. I loved that, but it's so much. Yeah, I watched that like two days ago when it was amazing. Loved it. It's over. Yeah. I remember freshman year saying to John Cribbs in college, "There's this great show Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You have to watch it." And him being like, "Yeah, really?" And I'm like, "It's written by Joss Whedon." And he's like, "Who's that?" And I'm like, "He wrote speed." And John was like, "No, he didn't. Graham Yoast wrote speed." And I was like, "I guess I'm wrong about that." He ghost wrote it. Somehow I knew that at the time. Just to inherently have that knowledge, yeah. John was very against Buffy. He's a huge Buffy fan now, but I like to point out he ridiculed me for months until I broke him down and got him to watch it. It's true. He ridiculed me. It's true. I was not watching TV at the time. So it took a lot to get me back into it, but I'm glad. Glad you finally broke me down. The weird thing is I read a lot of the Buffy comics, even after I, I don't know. Like, I love it so much, but yeah, I just stopped. And I re-watched episode or episode re-watched season one through three a lot. And that was it. And I just, I never watched Angel. And I think this time I'm going to do everything chronologically. So I'm going to go back and forth between episodes. But it very much needed right now. It's good. That's good. Whenever John re-watches Buffy, he's always sure to re-watch an episode of Charmed right after he watches an episode of Buffy to re-create the feeling of the WB Sundance. Yeah, to really get that atmosphere. That's good. That's a good idea. I really should do that in real life. But yeah, Melanie, we're excited to have you back. And as you mentioned, cinema parlor really kind of sets the bar for like laid back casual talks about cool stuff and you know, with intelligent conversations. So it's definitely what we're going for in this series. Yeah, absolutely. We're excited to talk to you about a movie. I think the second time we've had a guest on, we've only talked to you about books in the past. That romantic paperback novels and the infernal desire machine with Dr. Hoffman. I've been sorry. I missed being on that episode. That was a real bummer that I couldn't do that with you guys. Have you read that book? Yeah, I read it for the episode. I was set to do the episode and had to cancel. I didn't know if you actually got to read it or not, but yeah. I listened to an audiobook of it in which I played a clip for John. Zenaria talked in this ridiculous voice like this about the story. And it was like, what is going on? Why did he choose this? I played a clip of it for John and it's insanely irritating, the voice he picked. Yeah, I don't know that I could. I mean, I love an accent, but the bad thing is if I hear about accent, I will start doing it just around in my life. So I don't need that. But I don't think I would have turned that off, unfortunately. I've been reading a lot of good smut lately. Like I found a treasure trove in my local bookstore of some. I don't know if I mean, hopefully someone probably passed away. That's how it got there. Amazing stuff that I hadn't seen. Beautiful Fabio covers that I've never been able to physically have. Now I have them. So, you know, things are great, but things are good. That's exciting. Yeah. Well, speaking of accents, let's talk some murder on the Orient Express here. This is the movie that you picked. The 74 version, of course, directed by Sidney Lumet. Starring Albert Finney. Although Albert Finney was not his first choice. He first went to Allegenis and then went after. Who was the second choice? It was, oh, Paul Scofield was the second choice. And he thought Albert Finney was too young to play Poirot about 20 years. Yeah, Peron, the books, he starts out. I think he's already in his mid-60s, the first adventure out. And the very first time. Yeah, so he's like 66, 67 already. Albert Finney was 37. He was far too young, but he's great. You know, my favorite anecdote reading about the movie is that Lumet would send an ambulance over to Finney's, to pick up Finney every day at five o'clock. So he could keep sleeping while they did the makeup on the way to set. Yeah, there's so many of the actors on this that were actively doing plays in the evenings and they were filming during the days. So there was a lot of scheduling issues. Doug Jones never got that treatment. And Albert Finney's makeup was not that elaborate. I was shocked when I heard that. I watched the feature "Ed" on it. Why? He's got a nose. What took so long? To really plaster that hair down on top of it. Yeah, to lacquer it down is what, yeah. While Rose Knightley, skin care and beard care routine, that is very complicated. Although apparently Christie's biggest complaint about the movie was the mustache. She didn't feel like they gave the feral cute suit treatment. Yeah, it's supposed to be, oh, it's supposed to be much more, like Kenneth Branagh is probably too big, but it was supposed to be more lush. She was not happy. It's supposed to be the best mustache in Europe. I think this was the way it was described. It was on the edge of parody, as it is. I do like his pampering routine, though. It's so good. It's good in all the movies. Any movie that has an elaborate, getting ready for bed, grown man, getting ready for bed scene, Tuesday, Paul Grisby is another good example. You have to love it. When I sat down to watch this this time, I was under the, I was like, okay, I got to start it early, because this is like a three and a half hour movie, right? So when I got ready to watch, it was like, what? It's like barely two hours. What the hell? Because I'm so used to the brick VHS that they used to have at the video store. It was a double video VHS. Now I'm wondering like, why did they do that? It's only two hours long. So I did the exact same thing. Yeah, I did the exact same thing. Because we had that big brick, my grandma, that's how we watched it, the VHS. So I was like, oh, yeah, this is three hours. It's not. No, it's two hours. It's absurd. I mean, because of the city is 167 minutes, that's by far his longest movie that deserves the big brick VHS. But this one is three minutes longer than dog day after noon, six minutes longer than network. It's absurd. Yeah, I felt, but it was kind of like a reward. I was like, I've got my time back. It's not, I mean, even though I love this movie, I was excited to watch it. It was like, it's not a three hour commitment. This is good. Oh, I was excited that it was only two hours. Don't get me wrong. But I was at the same time was like, what did they think it like, you know, it would give it some kind of weight or something, or like make the scene with glass here that it's a two. I don't even know. I don't know how this marketing thing works, but I just wanted the Albert Finney mug on the side to get a lot of room on the spine. It's funny because I had no memory of how long this movie was before I went to watch it. And I saw two hours and 10 minutes. And I thought, yeah, that's how long Lumet movies are. They're all about two hours and 10 minutes. He does not bring him in fast. Two, I always say that two hours and 15 minutes is my least favorite runtime for a movie, because it's a movie that either wants to be three hours long or wants to be 90 minutes and they couldn't figure out how to get it there. Right? That's what I always feel. But Lumet, he does, although some of his movies like Network in the Wiz, I sometimes feel like Pete, like the second half of those things, like he does have pacing issues sometimes. Not the Wiz is longer than Murder on the Orient Express. The Wiz is endless. The Wiz is endless. Yeah. There's a point where you're like, I'm almost done. And you're like, nope. No, no. Serpico has the same thing where a lot of these movies have the first 45 minutes network. It's the best 45 minutes you ever saw in your fucking life. And then there's another hour and 20 minutes of movie that has some highs and some lows. That is what Lumet movies are like generally. I do think the third act, too, is where kind of the cart falls off the rails a little bit. Yeah. Can. Yeah. This one though, I find very steady. I find this to be a very steady movie throughout. And sort of, you know, I'm certainly no like Christie aficionado, but it feels pretty close to the platonic ideal of doing Christie in film to make. Yeah. I think her whole family really loved Albert Finney's performance. And they felt like this was the only one of the adaptations that really understood how to handle the story in a way that's true to the writing. They only, I mean, I think the only thing that's different is the very end, the tacked on little bit of pleasantry kind of. So this opens up, you know, they have a lot of exposition that they kind of want to get out of the way right away. This was adapted by Paul Den, who people probably know as the writer of the gold finger screenplay. He wrote all four of the Planet of the Apes sequels. I was going to say he's the Apes sequels guy. He's what I know of this. Yeah, of course. But it starts with this kind of montage of like newspaper articles and flashbacks showing the kidnapping of this baby that's similar to the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. And the most interesting thing I found from researching this was that Richard Williams, the great animator, was actually a consultant on that whole montage, which is pretty cool. Let me ask you first, Melanie. What do you think about this kind of decision to open it with this to kind of get all this out of the way so it doesn't kind of just get explained later on, just hearing Paul Rowe and everybody kind of exposited later on? I don't love the way everything looks at the beginning, but I do, I think it's smart enough and I think it pulls you in because we don't really talk about anything with, it's baby Daisy, but we don't talk about her again for so long where it just kind of drops it. And then it's like, okay, well, what was all of that about? Now we're on a train, we're on a boat to get to a train. It's like, what are we doing? But I really like it. I think it's super captivating. It's definitely an interesting decision. I don't know if you've read the book, I was going to ask you, do you know if, does it come up in the book? Like it right off or does it come and it comes up later? No, no, the book gets fully or revealed whenever they discover the burnt note. Yeah, it doesn't set any of that up. It's just a very cinematic kind of language that whole opening montage. And I agree that there's a little bit of hokiness in it, but it's kind of an interesting way to open the movie. Yeah, there's some weird editing where stuff is staggered. I don't love it. But I do, like the newspaper stuff looks good. So that kind of sets us up for to kind of meet our cast of characters. And much like towering Inferno, this is one of those movies where it's just like, they just got huge names, huge stars. It's just like a cast of just A+ movie stars, theater stars kind of meeting together. Apparently Lumet first went to his buddy Sean Connery and cast him right away and said, "Everyone will sign on if you do." Yeah, he's like, "You're my babe." Yeah, so of course you have Albert Finney playing, the detective, our lead character Connery. You've got Anthony Perkins. You've got Ingrid Bergman, of course. Lauren with Paul. Yeah, I'm on P. Jaclyn on set. Michael, you all good? I mean, right there you got like, and then plus Wendy Hiller, who is not maybe these days kind of considered an A-lister like an Anne Bancroft or an Ingrid Bergman, but she's a star by nowhere I'm going. You know, she's from a man for all season. She's like, at least equal, I think, in terms of just iconography to some of these people. Okay, and I think casting for that character, she's perfect. I mean, I feel like everyone, he was going out for just an all like a glamorous star-studded event, which he did, but I think everyone is really well casted. I love all the choices. And we'll get to it. Albert Finney's not my, he's not my pro, but I think he's great in the role. Well, let's get that out of the way. Who's your fora? Usanoff, Peter. Yes, yes. Peter, evil under the sun is my favorite. It's, I wouldn't say it's the best, but it's my favorite of those films. It's so comforting. It's so, I mean, if I was having a really bad week, I fully would go on a hoo done it marathon and just do all the Peter Usanoffs. He's an appointment with death too, right? Yes. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so. And then I think that most people, for as far as rankings go, I think David's who say is probably most people's favorite. He's the one that portrayed the, he portrayed him the longest. He was on the show for a good like 20 years, which he's really, really good. I think he probably does the most literal edit. It's, that version is how she wrote him in the book or in the books, but I don't know. There's something about Peter that's just, he's a little, there's a, a campiness to it and a little bit of a grandfather really. It just feels very, he's, I don't know, he's whimsical. I love him. Yeah. I just think it's a really good performance. I agree, you snuff is a lot more how I would picture him if I was reading the book. Finney has like this hunch, like this kind of almost sort of a Peter Laurie sort of thing going on in the movie. I kind of forgot what his performance is like. Yeah. He's really trying to be older. That's his version of being older, just to kind of hunch over himself. Hunch over, yeah. He's like, he's got to like push his chin down, so he has like the jowls and yeah. And you always think of Juaro as being just like big, you know, like obviously he's taking over a room, you know, when he's deducing and, you know, kind of revealing everything. But like I, Finney, I kind of lost him here and there, especially like his accent. I just, when he was off screen talking, I was like, okay, is that him talking or is that some, is that, you know, more awesome talking? I'm not sure. Like sometimes he doesn't feel like he commands the screen quite the right way. He's not bad. Yeah. Not bad, but yeah, I agree with you, we're just like it's not the only over. Yeah, it's like until you get to that eight, like the eight page monologue that he does at the very end, where he's explaining everything because then he's cooking, which again, I, it's a different portrayal than what I prefer, but I do like it. I think he's great. Yeah, and I think you're right. The casting is pretty spot on. I mean, I don't know if all the, you know, I love my mother stuff is from the book. But obviously if it was reading, he'd be like, well Anthony Perkins is going to play this character. Tony. Yeah, Anthony Perkins knew exactly what he was doing. It feels like somehow he got, I mean, yeah, it's good. It's very purposeful and I love it. Well, I think that it's also a lot of the film, the casting as filmmaking is very sly in that way as well, where like having Connery who is really on the margins for the first half of this movie and barely has any scenes and you're like, Oh, Connery's there, right? And Anthony Perkins references to the moms. There's just the way he uses a lot of the actors to sort of create red herrings and misdirection and clues in that way. I think that it's interesting how he uses the casting to sort of prey on the audience's mind in that sort of way, you know, the same thing of like, Oh, who's going to be the countess, you know, and like, Oh, why is Ingrid Bergman in this role? Sort of thing that, that, that give you a sense of, this is pointing me to suspect them or not suspect them on top of all the ways that the narrative itself is pointing you. The casting is also pointing you in interesting directions where characters that I think that you end up never really suspecting are the ones where they have the least famous people in them in some ways, you know, and it doesn't even matter what they've done, you know, like it that that ends up being part of the filmmaking, the casting a lot of this and how he sort of manipulates your direction and observation with the use of the actors and the use of the casting for Colin Blakely. No is ever going to suspect him of anything. Yeah, it's funny, I guess, yeah, he approached Ingrid Bergman with the idea that she would play the princess. I guess thinking like she's, you know, she's very regal, you know, she's very classy. That would be very good casting. Great. And that was Bergman who said, "No, how about this, this missionary, this Swedish missionary?" But again, I don't know if she's Swedish in the book, but, you know, like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, I guess. That's one of the characters that's different, a little bit different. But one thing we were talking about, Melanie, while we're in our intro to this series, Chris and I were talking about what a crime it was that she got an Oscar for this book fee. What are your thoughts on on her? Okay, I went through, which I don't know, Oscars or whatever, I don't even watch them anymore. But the... Correct, good answer. I don't know that I would have nominated anybody in this film. And I don't know if that's controversial, but I just feel like it almost is a disservice to the ensemble because everyone's equally important in different ways. I mean, I know Albert is doing the most at the end. I just, I wouldn't have, I wouldn't have nominated anyone. There are so many amazing performances from 1974 that I don't understand how, and I love this film so much. Obviously, I picked it. I don't understand how it got so many nominations for acting specifically. That was very surprising to me. That's all. I think cinematography, it was worth it. It should be up. It's amazing, but... But Jeffrey Godsworth, photography is great. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The score is amazing. I mean, there's so much about this. That is, for me, it's like this, oh yeah. It's just, it is very pretty and pleasing to see and to hear. But the acting is just, again, I love the cast. Everyone's perfectly picked, but I would not nominate anybody. It's really an ensemble piece, right? No one really particularly sticks out. I mean, maybe Rachel Roberts. I love Rachel Roberts from the movie. I want my own Hildegart Schmidt, like spin-off movie from this. I wanted a cook for me. You've said too much. It's a clue. I think that it's crazy. Too many clues in this room. Birdman, though, it's not only that, nobody deserves to be nominated. It's crazy that she won for this. It's crazy that she was nominated. Of all of the roles in this movie, the people you shouldn't nominate, she's got to be like seventh on the list of people you'd think did something worth nominating in this film. And I know she hadn't been working a huge amount in the 70s. So there was some kind of like, this might be our only shot to give her an award. Which she won two, which she's won two Oscars already. And would win another, right? Doesn't she win for Autumn Sinatra? She only nominated. No, this is her last acting win. Yeah, it is one of those things you watch it. And I will say, I also don't think she's very good in that role. I think of everybody who gives a weak performance. She gives probably the weakest performance in the entire film. They don't know. Who's weaker, because everybody's good. You know, I think weakest is like a B minus C plus type performance, is what I would say about it. Colin Blakely is definitely happy to hear you say that. He does fine. You're hammering him. He does just fine. Just as you know, like if you got a bunch of A-list stars, it's like plus Colin Blakely. I mean, let's be honest. You know what, but okay. He's the plus one. He's the plus one. I'm thinking about it. And I, yeah, I agree. She probably, yeah, you're right. Yeah. No, I don't, I just, it was like, am I, am I forgetting somebody? I like went back to my notes. I'm like, no, probably right. John Pierre Cassell is given less to do. So that might be like less worthy of a nomination, but he's perfect at it. He's great though. Every, yeah, John. So good. Yeah. And I say, I probably wouldn't be hammering Bergman, but like she beat Madeline Kahn in blazing saddles, obviously. I know. It should have been Madeline Kahn's. When, oh yeah. Like you, I had like a mental breakdown, not really, but I was, whenever I was looking at those, and I was like, Madeline Kahn was up for blazing saddles. One, it's like she should have performed her song at the Oscars, because that would be fun. They should do fun things. No, we'll give it to, we'll give it to England ever. One of the few performances that I laugh at literally every line she says. I mean, I know. We are, we are probably being unfair to one of my very favorite actresses. We should probably stop this right now, although I kicked it off more than anybody. It is amazing. She is good. It is amazing to watch this again. And here, the she sounds, that Isabella Rossellini now sounds exactly like she- Like her mother. I said the same thing. Yeah. I said, yeah, whenever she started talking, I was like, that's Isabella. Like, they sound just alike. Yeah, exactly. I just watched that Marcel with shoes, the shell with shoes, whatever it is. And yeah, so I just heard her voice and that, and then watching this, I was like, whoa, yeah, it's, wow. It's uncanny. Oh, exactly. They sound like each other now. How do you feel about, I'm trying to find a way to formulate this? Lumet is known as like, a serious director of actors, and an actor's director. Do you feel like he brings that to this movie, and that he gets something special out of them, or do you just feel like the casting was all it, and he just lets them go? Like, do you feel good directing in this, like actors directing in this, the way you do when you like, watch Serpikyo, or The Hill, or Network, and it's like, man, he really directed the hell out of those guys. I don't personally, but I do think there's good direction, and obviously the thing about this film, though, especially this rewatch, there's a scene where they're in the dining cart. This has nothing to do with acting. They're in the dining cart, and it's Tony Perkins, and it starts where it's like a medium-wide, and then it goes in, and then Tony gets up to leave. And the way that the camera follows him, I went back and replayed it again, because it was just like that. So the things that I think about this film where I'm blown away, it really is more of just looks. It's not so much the acting, and it's not about the story, even though the story is great. For me, it's all the technical stuff. It's in the music, so... And by technical stuff, do you mean the three-minute shot where it's just going down the train? Like, it's the fucking enterprise and Star Trek one? Yeah, it's amazing. That, and then, yeah, it's so beautiful. And then I just, the end, like, the lighting is so dreamy and glowy and just, yeah, it's beautiful. And I love the way that they did everything. It's, you know, they, it's... He didn't want to... Lumet was very specific that he wanted it to be very, you know, confined and very... He didn't want it to, because so often with these type of films, and then type spaces, they build everything wider. Everything is the dimension of the Orient Express. So it's those cards. He's like, "I want it to be tight so that we can work around it." And I just feel like with the editing, the way it pops, especially whenever we get into the interrogations, or the interviews we should say, it's popping around and it feels so active and alive. So for me, again, even though everyone is great and they are good, it's just... It's not really about the acting so much for me. And they're good performances. All of them are good. No one is bad. There's not a sore thumb that sticks out that feels super miscast or they're doing even an accent. That doesn't work. Even a bad accent in this. I'm like, "Ah, even molten bars with balsam's accent is a miracle." It's like you can't... If you see in the Anderson tapes, you know you can't trust Balsam and Mumette to team up for anything. And he's even... His accent is good in this. Yeah. I think it ends up being... Everybody is just exactly what they need to be in the movie. But I agree about the direction too, where this is the kind of directing feat that's much harder than people think about of, "How do you film conversations? How do you film dialogue in confined spaces?" Where you kind of can't retreat to setting and framing to save you. And even really less ability for camera movement. And so, you know, when you talk about widening stuff up, I immediately thought of how in the Brona version, when he gives the big speech about who does it, they say, "Everybody out of the train, so we can do this in the snow-slapped landscape." And I'll sit up my table in the tunnel and all that to like give it the space. When I tell you that I hated that so much, the end of that movie, I was like, "This staging is so stupid. Why are they out of the train so much?" This is dumb. I have issues with that film. It's not as bad as I originally thought. I don't know, re-watch, but... Do you think though that the part of it was like, "I got to do the opposite of Blue Met as much as possible. I got to get it off the train." I mean, there's something like that. I will say... But isn't that a bit of... Without like, we got to get them out of the phone booth? Yeah, there's a little bit of that too. Yeah, but speaking of the technical, the brilliant technical artistry here, the shot of them, of the boat, before they get on the train with the city across the water. So gorgeous. I was just immediately thinking, "See Kenneth Branagh? Shoot on location, man." Well, that's exactly it. That's what drives me. I like the three Branagh movies. I like and enjoy them. I enjoy them too, I enjoy them too. I enjoy them too, I enjoy them too. Death of a Nile drives me crazy because that is one of the ultimate travelogue thrillers. And the whole idea of a travelogue thriller is you're going to this interesting place and you're looking at it to see it in its context and then you film it all CGI greets screen and it's like, "What do you care about this? Nobody cares about this." And the exact same reaction to that opening shot of like, "Oh, you're in Istanbul and you're fucking seeing Istanbul. This is amazing. This is great. This is a travelogue. I get to travel with these people to these places and have the location just be interesting to see on its own." And that is maddening about the Branagh films. You know, most of all death on the Nile. The other two are a little more constricted, so it hurts less, but death on the Nile just kills you that it's all in front of a green screen. The thing about the Branagh films, though, is it'll have, this is what's frustrating. It'll have a really cool shot or set up where it's like in Murder on the Orange Express, there's a shot where he, it cuts directly from an, it's an outside wide shot of the cityscape, which is all digital. And then it goes into its pro looking at bread or something and it scans up on the bread. And I'm like, that is really well shot. That looks really nice. We didn't need the other shot. Just go to this. You don't need, if you're not there, just show me enough. Show me them on the boat, on the water. Don't show me a CGI pyramid. Don't show me a CGI room. Well, death on the Nile, that's like harder to function around. Like you kind of do need to be there, but I also feel like that was a style choice. That wasn't a COVID thing. I think that he wanted it to be to look like that. So, to look like a cut scene from Assassin's Creed? Yup, yup, he did. I think he might have bad choice. He made the wrong choice. He didn't choose wisely. I did really like the last one. Is that haunting and Venice? That one was really, I had fun with it. I thought it looked good. Yeah. I saw that at one of the, the I pick theaters in New York, which are like the fancy like, get given a blanket and sleeping like a little chain chair and get brought like, you know, foyer on shit. And I was like, this is a perfect thing to do with this movie. See it like that. And it was very, I like all three of them. I do like all three of them. I like him a lot. Yeah, he's good. But this one is like, when you contrast what he's doing to this one, it's hard not to be, you know, nostalgic for the past for maybe something that never existed of like, this, you lose the texture. You lose the reality of it. You lose the, you lose something by shooting on digital and shooting on green screen sets and building a fake train and having everybody dressed up and sort of, there's just even a way they costume people now. That's like hyper ridiculous. Like nobody can just be wearing a shirt anymore. Like everybody, they sort of costume people in Guaro movies, like they're superheroes, you know, like there's, there's an intensity to all of it. That when you watch something like this, you go, oh, as outlandish as this plot is, this is, there's something very real and textured and charming about it. That's real and charming about the textures itself of just like seeing the table with all the silver laid out on it in the dining room. You're like, God damn, look at all that silver. Like they don't actually have that in the modern movies. Like they might, somebody might remember to CGI that in and then it's like not interesting looking. But just, you know, the curtains and the brass of the handles and the snow and you just- The sinew. Yeah, all of it is just has so much more texture to everything and so much more reality that makes it feel like I'm seeing something as opposed to the sort of like, you know, so horrific. I'm not seeing anything. I'm sort of sleepwalking through this completely conjured story that you get when watching modern movies. That texture kind of takes over the movie. Like right after the murder is revealed, there's a dead body. Like the story's got a murder. Yeah. They're like, he's like, where is everyone else? He's like, they're in the dining car. And I'm immediately thinking, oh, I would love to be in that dining car in the cabin. Breakfast right now on that train, that would be so awesome. I know. And when they're at the market and there's like the like cauliflower and corn and peppers, I'm like, God damn, they're going to make a great stew with that. Yeah, they like are inspecting all of the food at the beginning. Yeah. That would not be in any modern film. I thought- When he tries the oysters to make sure they're fresh? Yeah. God damn. God damn. You know, it lingers for so long, which one of the trivia things on that was all that food was stolen and they had to buy it again the next day. And on location, because it all got stolen offset before they could film it. I believe it. That's amazing. I believe it. And it's set up too, which is great. Where they're in the restaurant is like, this is terrible food. Let's get on the Orient Express and get some good food. Yeah. With you guys. Let's do it. What is- I love the bottle is more distinguished than the line. That's such a great line. Such a great line. It's great. When it comes to the directing though, Lumet's directing, I had seen this somewhere described as a comedy or having comedic elements. And I was like, really? A movie that starts with like a murder of a baby and, you know, goes on to be about like a conspiracy of 12 people to murder somebody. Spoiler. It's like, really? There's comedy in a butt, butt, butt, butt, butt. There is. There is plenty of like good comedy in this. All my notes actually that I wrote down were lines I thought were funny. Like, well, it is certainly an answer and smokes a peep. A peep cleaner, you know, his back and forth with comedy is pretty funny. There's fun. Yeah, it's funny stuff. And it's the night of the red herrings. Yeah. It's really- There are some pretty good, oh, and Herbert Long shouting. They did it every time like they interview somebody. And it's like, he's right. It's funny that he's right every single time. Yeah. On this rewatch, I noticed that too. Because this is, I think the part of the reason, even it's not Peter. So it's not, he's not my guy. But I think part of the reason why I didn't, as a kid, go back to this one a lot, like I did the others is because the story is a dead baby is hard to get past. That's hard. Like, that's, that's a sad story. So I don't know. I'm sorry, two dead babies and a dead mother too. Yeah. If you suicides. I was going to say actually so many deaths happen. That's true. A murdered baby and a dead baby and a suicide had made. That in itself almost becomes absurd. It's like, you know, and then someone so upset, they got into a car accident, ran into a school bus and all those children were killed. I know. It felt, it was in the fact that it's someone jumping out a window. Like, you know, such a dramatic, there's a lot of, yeah, it's tense. So yeah, it's not as, for me, even though all of these stories have a murder, this one, I always felt a little bit less comedic. But on this rewatch, I was laughing a lot more. There's, I was just having fun with it. There's a lot of good one-offs of just people the way they say things that are very, very funny and charming. Gail Good is so funny in this movie. He's so funny in this movie. And there's a lot of, it's funny with Christie. I always think of her movies as being like light, popular entertainment. But there's genuinely always some aspect of her stories that's genuinely unpleasant. That's genuinely like gross and depressing, you know? Which I think speaks to sort of who she was as a person, as a kind of depressive, inwardly introverted type person. That that stuff sort of seeps through. There's always some subplot about like cocaine dealers who murdered somebody. You know, that stuff always ends up there. Or like dead babies and kidnapping. As much as you think of this as like light star studded entertainment, it really does have that heaviness just at the edges of it. Sort of like pulling everything downward in a way that's very easy to forget is there. And there's a big, it's the driving force of it. Yeah, a lot of her, a lot of her stories have a revenge angle even. And then there were none comes from like a big revenge plot. That yeah, just kind of by itself is a very seedy thing. I was surprised to find that to hear to read that. One of the things Lumet added to it was that final scene of everyone congratulating each other, you know, clinking glasses at a job well done. Which really makes it so much more sinister that after our row has kind of said, you know, this is a justifiable homicide. I'm just going to turn my back and we'll let you guys get away with it because this guy was such a monster and created so much misery. But then at the end, they're still happy about it. And it's like, it's still a murder of a human being. All 12 of you stabbed a person to death. And now you're celebrating it's creepy. And I love that last scene. And I'm surprised that that's not a Christie edition, but rather a lighthearted Lumet, you know, addition to the movie. Yeah, he wanted it to be a curtain call because he was like, me as a viewer, I want to have this conclusion. And then I want to be lifted up again. It is weird. I like it, but it is weird. It makes it far darker and twisted. It really does. It's a nice addition. I'm glad he didn't do what you would imagine would be like, you know, the kind of predator and credits of everyone like them. Doing the sitcom turnaround is getting their name put up there and everything. So to kind of stay with the characters and kind of say, you know, is it okay? You know, even though that guy deserved to die, are you going to be okay moving forward knowing that you've killed somebody? And like you could kill someone again. I like that. I'm just ashamed that he was an Italian. Brought shame to it. Obviously a frog. That's not a good one. Connery is so good. He's so fantastic. He's a real movie star. This movie is also a real testament to something that you and I talk a lot about, John, of like real movie stars are different than actors and great actors. And it's possible to be a great actor and an interesting actor without being a bona fide movie star. And then when you put a bunch of like real movie stars in a movie together like this, it's really crazy to have like, you know, I don't think they share a scene together, but like Connery and Bacall in the same movie is like nuts. That's like a nut set up in Bergman and Finney and all of that. And just like the power of movie stars. This movie, because it is so talky, I think that's something that's always surprises me every time I watch it. This movie has very little narrative action to it. This movie has him get on a train, meet everybody on a train. A guy gets murdered and then he won by one interviews people, in some cases, I guess he interviews two people at the same time, but goes through and it's just a scene of him talking to people, right? And then he says, okay, now I've heard enough, here's the solution. And that's it. I've just described the full hours and two hours and 10 minutes of it, you know. I guess there's little things like somebody finds a button from a jacket, you know, but there's certainly not like a chase scene or, you know, people grip to the top of the trains or somebody freaking out and trying to get off of the train and escape. Like there's none of that stuff. It's just like, meet the people, murder happens, talk to the people, murder solution. It's very play-ish and theatrical in that way. Yeah, the biggest action scene is like the the hat box trick with the match. I was about to say that. I was like, the most thrilling part of it is whenever he's pulling out the hat box and everything is so beautifully like photographed. And yeah, that's the most gripping part. But it's interesting because the way you make that kind of very talky, very action-free narrative work is you just put a bunch of movie stars in it and you can watch. It's really true when like you can watch Sean Connery read the phone book and you're like, God damn, that was great. You can watch Charlotte Rambling read the phone book and you're like, God damn, that's great. You know, and it really does it really does work. It really is the solution on how to make this movie play properly. It's not just stunt casting where they're sort of standing around doing nothing. Sometimes when you have this overloaded cast and these overloaded star-studded things, you feel like, well, what is everybody doing in this, you know? But this one, it's he understands that to make this compelling a lot of the time. Well, you know, hopefully they're taken in by the story and the writing. But if failing that, we've got Albert Finney. You know what I mean? And I do think that this movie is one of the true testaments to movie star power in a funny way. I think it's cool that Connery gets paired up with Vanessa Redgrave, who in real life was dating Timothy Dalton and becomes James Bond later on. They were both in the 1979 movie Agatha together as well. Wait, is Connery? Oh, Dalton, you mean? Dalton isn't. I was like, Connery is an Agatha. I just watched Agatha. Connery is not, and that I would remember Connery in anything. When you're right, Timothy Dalton, please, Kirk. Long live Snow Goodna husband. Lumet's is one of those really interesting filmographies to kind of just like glance over and just wonder like, wow, he was really, he was number one so prolific, obviously, at this time and just like, so all over the place at the same time. It's funny because he's somebody who's never considered, he's never dropped in a conversation about the new Hollywood of the 1970s, right? Even though, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico and Network, we're all like heavy hitter, radical, game-changing films that feels like they should be in that conversation. And it's boom, boom, boom. Like, his body is pretty crazy. Yeah, and I feel like he's such a solid working director where anytime he puts something out, obviously, audiences are going to go see it and it's going to get, you know, some award attention consistently. He's going to do that every time. But yeah, his name is not dropped like others. It's, it's very odd. I feel like the reason is this movie, movies like this that he would like, occasionally, I would be like, well, I'm off the streets of New York for this, you know, this year. I'm going to go and I'm going to make like a traditional movie star heavy Hollywood film that's going to get awards. He was also apparently really pissed off. He did not get nominated for best director when this movie got so many nominations. It was a stacked year for director. I think we already talked about that Chris. Yeah. It's all great. All, all great. But he also with Lumet, I would say no great, truly great beloved director like him has more movies in his filmography that you hear the title and you're like, I have no idea what that is. No great director has more like last of the mobile hot shots. Critical condition. Just tell me what you want. Hey guys, what is just tell me what you want? Either of you know? I know it's from 1980. I don't know. That's it. I don't know. I don't have a list up. I don't know. A view from the bridge? Either of you guys, can you tell me a single thing about it? I couldn't tell you what year. I couldn't tell you who's in it. Exactly. No, I really think no truly great. There's a lot of like earlier journeyman directors that are considered great that just have a thousand films that you can't know what they all are. But I mean of the like awe tours. I think he has the most titles where people just haven't even heard of this fucking movie. And even if you've heard of love and Molly, but I've not seen it. Amongst these other films of this area, you're like, what's it doing there? Is that it was originally called leaving Cheyenne and Toby Hooper wandered onto the set because they were filming in Texas and tried to steal chicken wings and got thrown off right before he made Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That is all I know about love and Molly. Yeah, and he has great movies too that I'm like, this is a phenomenal movie, one of his best, like The Hill, that people are like, I don't know what that is, you know. Or and forgotten ones that I feel like, do people, are people aware that before the devil knows you're dead is like a top to bottom masterpiece? Do people, do they know? Is it sure, you know? Yeah, one of the best last films of any director. Yeah, I mean, it's no pen and teller get killed, but it's pretty good. You said that like, it's a joke, but you like that. No, I mean, I didn't mean it like that's a joke. I mean, that's the best one. That's Arthur Penn's best movie. It's great. It's great. Yeah, I don't know why and when I was going through, you know, a little bit of research, I don't know why he's not named like others. It's weird. I think it's because a lot of those other 70s directors weren't as prolific as him. I really do think that is that you have guys like Fried Ken and Coppola who especially when they ascend don't make as many movies and slow down and are trying to make sort of monumental films in that heyday when their reputations are being made. And exactly what John is saying where it's like, is love and molly the same year as this? It's very. It's before. It's like right before this, I think. Yeah, it's very, you know, yes. When this movie comes out in a three year span, he has the offense, Serpico, Loving Miley, Murder on the Orxpress, and Dog Day afternoon, which is a great run, but also too many movies to be like, you know, oh, here comes the new one. And his network right after Dog Day? Yeah, yes. Yeah, that's crazy. It's a crazy run. It's a great run. Maybe it's that. What do you think about this? I mean, he's such a modest kind of guy and such guy kind of defer to his collaborators. So often, you know, obviously network to be seen as like a Pat Hieff ski masterpiece more than anything or this is like, it's by it's an Agatha Christie book. Everyone loves Agatha Christie or 12 Angry Men's a great play. I just wonder like how much is it is like kind of like his agency weakens a little bit just because like, well, that's just great material he had to work with as opposed to like here's Sidney Lumet really put in his signature on these films. You know, I think the author, loving people, loving audience are just going to be like, dismissing him a little bit, you know. Truly factors, yeah. How much credit do we give him for the seagull? Well, you know what I mean? Like when there's obvious other factors at play there. Good point. He's also a director to me that as a director who I really, really love, he has a lot of films that you have to talk yourself into or are on the borderline where you're trying to decide whether to talk yourself like Equus. Is that a good movie? I'm not sure. I've tried to talk myself into it sometimes. You know, there's also movies like The Anderson Tapes that you'll hear people defend. And it's like they've talked themselves into that. You know, the, the offense. I could talk myself into the offense 1000% but you talk yourself into it. Equus is the one I was easy. I, you know, I, I generally love Prince of the City is my talk myself into it. Movie is like, oh, it's great. It is. Yeah. I also think he has a lot of movies that have these big reputations. And when you're a young cinephile and you've heard, that's a great movie by a great director. And then you watch them and you're kind of like, huh, is it like the verdict or the whiz where you're like, where you're like, huh, okay. And especially when you're a young cinephile, when you're exposed to them, you do go up. I didn't feel like I just saw a good movie. What were you going to say? Well, I re-watched the verdict not too long ago, like over the summer, I think. And I loved it the first time I watched it. I was like, this is amazing. This is so good. The performances every, it's, it's wonderful. I re-watched it. And I was like, I, I think I overestimated that a little bit. I think it was fine. I think it was fine. It's good. It's not bad, but I don't, the hype that I had for it. And then that re-watched, I was like, that happened to me a lot this year. I re-watched the jerk recently. I did not find it as funny as I used to. Oh no. I think my, I know, I don't know what's happening with me, but I think it's- These are movies that I was planning on watching again sometime soon. I'm like, no, no, maybe I'm going to hate it. I watched the jerk when I was too old. I didn't see the jerk until I was like 24. And I think if you wait too long, that's- You miss the boat. Yeah, I do. It's definitely a miss the boat movie. I can imagine it's a going back to it when you're older movie. That's also like, maybe it doesn't. It wasn't, yeah. The things that I like about it, I guess, I still like enough. But it's really just the one scene that does it for me. It's the gas station, the cans. I mean- I just watched three amigos again recently and that holds up. I'm happy to report. Happy to report. I've been singing my little buttercup all the time. Chris, do you know what emolament means? What? Emolament? Do you know what that means? No. Is that from this movie? Yeah. Emolament. No. What is that? Good. It means that you didn't murder anybody. Good job. You passed the test. Wait, what? I did not catch this part. I missed it when he was talking to Ingrid Bergman. But later on, Porro says, "You don't know what this means, but you know the word emolament means, which means a salary or a fee." I got a fancy way of saying like, "You get paid for something." So she accuses her of that and that's one of the reasons he knew that she was putting on an act. I completely missed that. That's fine, because I missed when that exchange happened between them. But then at the end, he makes a huge deal out of it. It's like, "Oh, that was the big..." Porro, this is not going to hold up in court. I'm sorry to say. But she knew the word emolament. How's something not put her to the chair? I do love whenever it's going through his big monologue at the end. And whenever it flashes back to the earlier interrogations, I love that they use a different lens so that it makes it feel completely different. I love that distinction. That's another piece where just like, "Man, this film is really well made. It's better than I used to give it credit for. It's a good one." And again, like a nice way to make it look more sinister with those extreme close-ups of them. Yeah, a lot of the high angles and stuff. Yeah, the lighting changes, the shadows, it's good. This movie is like a great example of like the greatness. We were talking about this on the towering inferno of like the greatness of Hollywood filmmaking of just like top technicians, top actors. This was not a huge budget movie, but real money behind it. Just like when you go to Hollywood and do something that like, Hollywood does better than anybody else. This movie is like a perfect example of it. With Christie, you're going to find holes. You're going to find complaints about the story. The one thing that really stuck out to me this time, the movie's going to wait. And then it was the act of like having Waro here, things at night, right before the murder happens, to make him think that it happens at a different time. He says afterwards they had unshakable alibis at 115. And my thought was like, they're all in on it. How do they not all have a perfect alibi? No matter what time it is. I was going to be not all just back each other's story up, whatever it happens to be. Isn't all their alibis too? Like, oh, I was asleep. That's like 90% of their alibi. It's airtight. They were asleep. I was asleep. I was in the dining cart with him. I can tell you that. I know you weren't there. You don't know that I was there. I was there, for sure. And it's just, we're good. Okay. Yeah, I would, if Pro ever had to go into in front of a judge, I don't know how any of it would hold up for any of his cases, to be honest. Who would all come apart very quickly? You could start explaining his little gray cells, how he came to the conclusion and the judge would be like, okay, you get out of my court right now. Well, that's what's funny about Christie's writing. And she's obviously the best at it. But when we talk about Red Right Hand, which is this book that is just from this same tree of mystery writing, of sort of locked room mystery red herrings piled on red herrings, where you're trying to stay one step ahead of the audience, make them make guesses and then crush those guesses over and over again, right, is the entire idea of this type of writing, is like give them enough information to make guesses, and then sort of humiliate those logical guesses that you've given to them. And Right Hand Red, it gets just so convoluted, where you can't even understand what it wants you to be thinking anymore, because it's trying to be so ahead of you that it's just like, I don't even know what you're saying at this point. Christie does, it's just like she does suffer from that. This loses any sense of logic because it's so wrapped up in the game, it's playing with its audience and so aware of the game, it's playing with its audience that you can't step back and look at it rationally. It makes no sense to step back. None of the locked room mysteries ever stop makes sense. It's sort of like setting up parameters for a game to play with it, and obviously she does it better than anybody, that's why these are enduring, but it is like, you can't possibly think about any of this rationally for one single second. And that's sort of always what's funny about the game, is it's sort of you're agreeing to play by the game's rules by sitting down with it. You know, you can't come up with your own solutions, because it just doesn't matter. You have to stay within the rule set that it gives you. At the same time, you can't deny Paara, right? I mean, just such a large-than-life personality. The way you can't deny like a Magritte or a Jules de Grandin or a Father Brown, I mean, they just, even if the story itself is going to be... Or a Father Dowling. Exactly. You just love that personality, you know, and you can watch even someone not the greatest Paara of all time, but you can watch someone doing that and still be entertained. Just as a way to wrap up here, Melanie, of course, if you have any of the last thoughts on the film that we didn't get to, please let us know, but where does this one, other than the Finney Paara, which you've established, not your favorite, where does this one rank in the Christie adaptations for you? Is it the best one? Yeah, I think this one probably is the best adaptation as far. If you want to talk about taking the story that she wrote and bring it to life on screen, I think it's the most successful and technically the best. But it's, again, evil under the sun. If I could recommend to go watch something that's really fun, I think Death on the Nylon, evil under the sun with Peter Usnoff are my... Those are my go-tos. I think they're so beautiful and there's just something that, again, they're incredibly comforting and the journey you go on is very fun. So it's just, but again, there's a nice gentle murder in those. So it's good. The first time I always remember Angela Lansbury is Death in the Nylon. So good. The cast, the way that this one sat at the template for the hoo donuts that would come is it's beautifully done. Even Ryan Johnson, I really love knives out. I have issues with glass onion, but I still like the cast and I think a lot of that is more of, I think it was too referential to the time. But maybe in 20 years, it won't feel as hokey. Maybe it'll feel better. I don't know. But I do... It's so weird. We saw that at Toronto and it played, it killed with the audience. And I got, yeah, and I got caught up in it. I didn't like knives out in particular. See, I liked knives out, but... And I was like, wow, glass onion. That's going to be huge, and nobody likes it. And I was completely caught off guard. I had no sense. I was like, I just, I got, I got bamboozled by the audience there at TIFF fucking going bananas for it. Yeah. Again, I think, for me personally, I think it might play better for me in like 20 years. Maybe I like it more than... I just think at the time when I watched it, I was like, we don't have to talk about COVID again. Like, we know. I think also the kind of low hanging fruit it goes after as far as who it parodies and the jokes it make. Yeah. Play a lot better with the jam-packed audience. We saw it in a big theater, probably 500 people. You know, I think that that, and that kind of stuff plays better with an audience, you know, than watching it at home. But I do, the star sort of cast, that stuff does work for me. And I think that those films are well cast as well. But yeah, I don't know. There's just something about the films from the '70s and '80s that feel that it's just nostalgic. That's what it is. That's the drug that you're feeling. Well, any last thoughts on Murder on the Orient Express? It was placed in 1974. It's placed in cinematography. It's a solid film. It's good. The Oscar nominations for acting are still bizarre to me, and they'll never not be bizarre to me. But, you know, I'm happy that Ingrid got another trophy, so good for her. I certainly wouldn't want to be the one to rip it out of her hands. I would never. Jon, do you think this movie or towering Inferno was more deserving in Oscar for best original song? This one, it has no song, but it should have gotten the Oscar over towering Inferno. I think they're equally deserving. No, this one, over towering Inferno. That's what I'm trying to say. Thank you for doing this episode. Thank you for coming on this show and talking with us. This is a lot of fun. This is like a good comfort movie, so. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I was very excited because it was comforting. It was like, this will be easy. This will be fun. It really was, and again, expecting a three and a half hour movie and then getting a two hour one. I will never say Sydney Lumet's movies are too long just because of that. Moving forward. I expected to be longer than it was, and it wasn't. Thanks very much, everyone. Good night. That is not an Oscar worthy impression. [laughter] [music]