Murder on the Orient Express (2001 film)

Murder on the Orient Express is a 2001 made-for-television mystery film directed by Carl Schenkel based on the 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie, featuring Hercule Poirot. This version is set in the present day and has a smaller cast than the novel. The screenplay was written by Stephen Harrigan and the original music score was composed by Christopher Franke.

Plot
Hercule Poirot is travelling on the Orient Express. While on the journey, Poirot meets a very close friend Bouc, who works for the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. The train is stopped when a landslide blocks the line on the second night out from Istanbul, and American millionaire Samuel Edward Ratchett is found stabbed to death the next morning.

Since no footprints are visible around the train and the doors to the other cars were locked, it seems that the murderer must still be among the passengers in Ratchett's car. Poirot and Bouc work together to solve the case. They are aided by Pierre Michel, the middle-aged French conductor of the car.

A key to the solution is Ratchett's revealed involvement in the Armstrong tragedy in the United States several years earlier, in which a baby was kidnapped and then murdered. (The fictitious Armstrong case, inspired by the real-life kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh's baby boy.)

Cast

 * Alfred Molina as Hercule Poirot
 * Meredith Baxter as Mrs. Caroline Hubbard
 * Leslie Caron as Sra. Nina Alvarado
 * Amira Casar as Helena von Strauss
 * Nicolas Chagrin as Pierre Michel
 * Tasha de Vasconcelos as Vera Rossakoff
 * David Hunt as Bob Arbuthnot
 * Adam James as William MacQueen
 * Dylan Smith as Tony Foscarelli
 * Peter Strauss as Mr. Samuel Ratchett
 * Fritz Wepper as Wolfgang Bouc
 * Kai Wiesinger as Philip von Strauss
 * Natasha Wightman as Mary Debenham

Background
Burt Reynolds, Judi Dench, Lauren Bacall, Claire Bloom, Charlotte Rampling, and Sophia Loren were all originally believed to have been cast in the film. At least a dozen members of Keighley Playhouse in Keighley were extras on the film, and provided their own costumes.

Filming and production
Filming started on 6 February 2001 in Leeds. A replica of an Orient Express buffet car was built at Horsforth's newly opened Transformer Studios, where the majority of the filming took place. Filming also took place in Kingston upon Hull, Bury, and Istanbul.