Agatha Christie Lovers discussion

omg wow :P
im reallii realli surprised.. i havent been on this group in about.. 6 months? nd yet its still active! im proud of u guyz!!!!!!

hey i'm saad. i am from pakistan and i have this question abt murder on orient express and i hope to get an answer

okok :P
what's ur question!?

A0A. My name is Saad and I joined this group just yesterday. The prime reason for me doing so is a very strange one. You see i am probably the biggest Agatha Christie fan on planet earth and i have this really troubling question regarding MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. I haven't read it yet but while reading Agatha Christie's biography on the net i unfortunately read that at the end of the novels hercule poirot takes mercy on the killer and lets him\her escape justice. what i wanted to know is if this fact is going to spoil the novel for me or not.
It may seem wried to you but it is very important for me to get this question answered. so please do it ASAP. I asked you because no one where i live follow Agatha Christie.
Looking forward to your reply.

Please don't say anything in your answer which may spoil it further for me as i haven't read it yet

Saad wrote: "Please don't say anything in your answer which may spoil it further for me as i haven't read it yet"

Hi Saad, did u ever get the reply for your Q'n? I recently joined this group and didnt c any reply.

Saad wrote: "
A0A. My name is Saad and I joined this group just yesterday. The prime reason for me doing so is a very strange one. You see i am probably the biggest Agatha Christie fan on planet earth and i ..."
Hello Saad
I dont think it would spoil the joy of reading it at all.....Just go for it.... It is a very complexed plot... That's all what I am going to say......
Well, you must have read it as it has been more than a year since you have posted here........

Hey I figure this topic is as good as place as any as I was surprised to read that Sir Kenneth Branagh is starting as Poirot in the new "Murder On The Orient Express" adaption. He will also be part of the production team. Thoughts?

He had a wonderful eqo quality in Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets that should serve him well as Poirot- though he doesn't seem to fit the Poirot physicality.

My complaint, if I have one, is why re-make the least exciting, least suspenseful of the Christie offerings?

I like MOTOE more than Raymond, but my feeling about another adaptation is "what's the point?" I wish the Neil Jordan project of Crooked House hadn't been cancelled!

I'm enamoured with the book, but I feel they always seem to lean towards this one...there's plenty of other amazing Christie's that can be adapted too!

Brooklyn: Hollywood likes the ones they can jamb full of big names.

Ridley Scott is working on it too. I mean it will likely be epic but once can't match Mr Suchet (:

For fellow Agathoics & Christieans ,
BBC radio4 is playing great radio play adaptions of many poirot, Miss marple and HarleyQuinn novels, In poirot great John Moffat is using his grey cells as Poirot! Oh mon'amie !Here is link for Murder of Links
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jxgm

Yay :D

Thank you. I will check it out.

Brooklyn wrote: "Hey I figure this topic is as good as place as any as I was surprised to read that Sir Kenneth Branagh is starting as Poirot in the new "Murder On The Orient Express" adaption. He will also be part..."

I do wish people would leave well enough alone. Kenneth Branaugh resembles Poirot as much as I sound (musically) like Barbra Streisand. (I don't) . Sadly, more often than not, Hollywood pays more attention to the name/ rep of the actor than the character he's supposedly portraying.

Back in the day, Peter Ustinov played Poirot and I have to wonder if the producers read any description about the character (look or personality) . Poirot was described, physically, as 'little' . (5'4") Peter Ustinov was not LITTLE anything. I have NOTHING against Mr. Ustinov but creating a character is more, MUCH MORE than assuming a name a smidge of an accent.

Over the last 25 years, David Suchet lived that character, down to the mannerisms, that could utterly baffle Poirot's dressers and production crew. Check out "Being Poirot" on youtube.

Oddly, the BBC is trying to recreate the singular success of the series with a new Poirot. WHY?

Brooklyn wrote: "Ridley Scott is working on it too. I mean it will likely be epic but once can't match Mr Suchet (:"

Oui! Hollywood's penchant for milking a successful series til the poor cow is dry is wearing on my "little grey cells" David Suchet's interpretation was spot on. Why 'fix' what isn't broken?

The BBC is going to do a remake of "The ABC Murders" and I'm wondering why? What's the point of redoing the story? It's been done and we have the definitive version: the 1992 David Suchet version and that is the closest that you're going to get to the book. I expect the new version to be like the other recent Christie adaptations, including Witness For the Prosecution: unfaithful to the book, taking major liberties that are not in the spirit and essence of Agatha Christie.

Lucia wrote: "GilliansCafe wrote: "Brooklyn wrote: "Ridley Scott is working on it too. I mean it will likely be epic but once can't match Mr Suchet (:"

Oui! Hollywood's penchant for milking a successful series ..."

Hi Lucia

Lucia wrote: "GilliansCafe wrote: "Brooklyn wrote: "Ridley Scott is working on it too. I mean it will likely be epic but once can't match Mr Suchet (:"

Oui! Hollywood's penchant for milking a successful series ..."

I'm reading Being Poirot currently. He does seem to have inhabited the character completely. And the ABC Murders adaptation with him was really one of the best. I can't say that about MOTOE, which was awful in my opinion. As a life-long fan, I really hate when the characters and plots are changes so drastically.

Lucia wrote: "BTW, have you ever seen the adaptation of "Lord Edgware dies" starring Peter Ustinov? A very bad one, in my opinion... save for a gem: a young David Suchet plays Chief Inspector Japp. Funny how things go sometimes..."

Aside from the fact that the film was updated to the 80's, it wasn't that bad though it does have its problems. First off, Peter Ustinov isn't Poirot. He bears no resemblance to him physically .... especially physically. David Suchet was wrong for the role of Chief Inspector Japp. The film was pretty faithful to the book, though the film was updated. I liked Faye Dunaway as Lady Edgware -- she exemplified her selfish, all-about-me mentality. I much prefer Hugh Fraser's portrayal of Capt. Hastings. He perfectly plays up on being clueless but never to the point of silliness like the portrayal in this film. Fraser's portrayal of a Hastings who has fought in the war is more believable unlike the one in this film. I didn't care much for the music -- the music from the Suchet version was much better and it kept you on the edge of your seat. It takes more than being faithful to the book -- the film's direction could have way better. At least in this one you don't have any ridiculous chase scenes like the Suchet one. It wasn't needed.

I've seen a lot of pretty bad Christie adaptations so this particular is somewhere in the middle --moderately bad, moderately good. The recent Christie adaptations are far from the spirit and essence of Agatha Christie. At least the Ustinov version doesn't stray into being gratuitous like today's adaptations. Ustinov's Lord Edgware sticks more to the traditional formula of detection and focuses more on the mystery rather than attempting to shock the audience with profanity (like in the new Witness For The Prosecution film), unnecessary sexual scenes, and putting homosexual/lesbian characters into a film that weren't in the book (view spoiler)[(such as the murderer in Cards On The Table and he never was that in the book) (hide spoiler)]. The focus doesn't appear to be on the mystery anymore. They don't have that Agatha Christie feel to them.

Pghfan wrote: "I'm reading Being Poirot currently. He does seem to have inhabited the character completely. And the ABC Murders adaptation with him was really one of the best. I can't say that about MOTOE, which ..."

In my mind there's no adaptation of MOTOE that compares to the 1974 version..... and probably never will. It's a shame that David Suchet, our definitive Poirot, didn't make a definitive version of the story. I think if the story was made earlier in the series while it struck hot we would have had a better Orient Express (without the gang -- Miss Lemon, Hastings, and Japp) than the one we got. They tried so hard not to be like the 1974 film and it just didn't work. I felt like they jammed that justice theme down our throats which the book didn't do.

Everyone has their own fave version of Murder on the Orient Express if you're a Christie or even a good old fashioned MYSTERY fan. . Personally, mine is with David Suchet's Poirot. Others might like the Peter Ustinov version. It's all good.