Monday 4 August 2014

Murder on the Orient Express (1974 Sidney Lumet)

Having one of the most amazing casts ever assembled it's a slight shame we don't see more of Bisset, Connery et al. However we can't complain, and nor can Bergman, who won Oscar - note how in the key scene with her, Anne Coates doesn't cut at all - it's one sensational uninterrupted sequence. Compare this to a few scenes later - the Belgian sleuth roughly interrogating Vanessa Redgrave, and the intervention of Sean Connery - quite an amazing moment of cutting from our Ms Coates (we had to watch it not twice but three times), once again beautifully shot in super-diffused style by Geoffrey Unsworth, who I would have guessed had won more BAFTAs than anyone else ever (five), though I see that a certain W. Allen has received eight!



Albert Finney (who with writer Paul Dehn won Oscars) is so good that you forget it is he most of the time.


And not credited above, George Coulouris (Citizen Kane), Colin Blakely.

Benefits enormously from Richard Rodney Bennett's music - memorably queasy in the flashback scenes but bursting into majesterial melody when the train pulls out.



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