Murder on the Orient Express Soundtrack (1974)

Synopsis

The murder

Having sorted a matter out in the Middle East, detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney) is returning to England aboard the Orient Express. During the journey, Poirot encounters his friend Bianchi (Martin Balsam), a director of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits, which owns the line. The train is unusually crowded for the time of year: every first-class berth has been booked. Shortly after the train's departure from Istanbul, a wealthy American businessman, Ratchett (Richard Widmark), tries to secure Poirot's services for $15,000 since he has received many death threats, but Poirot finds the case of little interest and turns it down. That night the train is caught in heavy snows in the Balkans. The next morning Ratchett is found stabbed to death in his cabin.

Clues

Dr. Constantine's examination of the body reveals that Ratchett was stabbed 12 times. Some wounds were slight, but at least three of them could have resulted in death. The stopped watch in the victim's pocket, as well as Poirot's reconstructed timeline of passenger activities the night before, indicate that Ratchett was murdered at about 1:15 a.m. The train had stopped, surrounded by fresh snow, before that time. There are no tracks in the snow and the doors to the other cars were locked, so the murderer is almost certainly still among the passengers in the coach in which Ratchett was killed.

Suspects

The thirteen suspects are:

• Hector McQueen (Anthony Perkins)
• Edward Beddoes (Sir John Gielgud)
• Mary Debenham (Vanessa Redgrave)
• Colonel Arbuthnott (Sean Connery)
• Princess Natalia Dragomiroff (Wendy Hiller)
• Hildegarde Schmidt (Rachel Roberts)
• Count Rudolf Andrenyi (Michael York)
• Countess Elena Andrenyi (Jacqueline Bisset)
• Greta Ohlsson (Ingrid Bergman)
• Mrs. Harriet Belinda Hubbard (Lauren Bacall)
• Antonio (Gino) Foscarelli (Denis Quilley)
• Cyrus B. "Dick" Hardman (Colin Blakely)
• Pierre-Paul Michel (Jean-Pierre Cassel)

Motive

Poirot soon comes to realise that all the suspects were connected to the Armstrong family and had reason to seek revenge for the tragedies that followed the kidnapping. Some openly admit their connections to the Armstrongs, while other ties must be uncovered by Poirot. Ratchett was sedated by Beddoes and McQueen. Each of the passengers then stabbed him in turn.

Poirot presents this explanation for the murder to the assembled passengers, describing it as the "complex" solution to the crime. Yet he also offers another explanation, a "simple" one. In the course of the inquiry evidence has been found of an intruder on the train, who may have murdered Ratchett and then escaped evidence planted by the suspects. Poirot suggests that Ratchett/Cassetti may have been involved with the Mafia and murdered as the result of a feud. He leaves it to Bianchi, director of the line, to decide which explanation to present to the local police.

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