The Mystery of the Blue Train
- Episode aired Dec 11, 2005
- TV-PG
- 1h 34m
IMDb RATING
7.5/10
2.6K
YOUR RATING
Poirot investigates the brutal murder of an American heiress and the theft of a fabulous ruby on the Blue Train between Calais and Nice.Poirot investigates the brutal murder of an American heiress and the theft of a fabulous ruby on the Blue Train between Calais and Nice.Poirot investigates the brutal murder of an American heiress and the theft of a fabulous ruby on the Blue Train between Calais and Nice.
Josette Simon
- Mirelle Milesi
- (as Josettesimon-93556)
Andy Callaghan
- Champagne Waiter
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaHercule Poirot mentions at the end that he has never traveled on the Orient Express, raising viewer expectations of his most famous case, "Murder on the Orient Express."
- GoofsPoirot says at 28 min 27 sec that he doesn't like odd numbers, only even numbers yet at 34 min 12 sec into film, he puts caviar on his 9 crackers, an odd number.
- Quotes
Rufus Van Aldin: [Introducing himself] Mr. Poirot, Rufus Van Aldin. I'm in oil... figuratively speaking.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express (2006)
- SoundtracksNice Work If You Can Get It
(uncredited)
Music by George Gershwin
Lyrics by Ira Gershwin
[heard at night club]
Featured review
Good script, wretched direction
It's easy to tell this latter-day batch of Poirot adventures are not being made by the production company that turned out the hour-long episodes and the first group of feature-length TV movies with David Suchet. Not only are Hastings, Japp and Miss Lemon gone (along with the fine actors who played them), but so is Poirot's Arte Moderne apartment building--and any reasonable sense of time and place. These were virtues; they are sorely missed.
"Mystery of the Blue Train" has a pretty good Poirot plot with some colorful supporting players and a few effective performances, but it is so badly directed--no, ATROCIOUSLY directed--as to be a headache-inducing pain to watch. There are no establishing shots of buildings, no wide shots of ballrooms and the like, and there are dozens upon dozens of off-center closeups. Furthermore, many of the closeups are hand-held, an extremely poor choice of technique for a story set in the 1930s. The director also resorts to the very tired effects of an extraordinarily unimaginative mind: virtually every set, including some exteriors, is drenched in thick, almost impenetrable smoke. This is usually "explained" by having one or more of the characters puffing away on cigarettes--so obtrusively (including many crushed out under foot) that you begin to assume that cigarette smoking has something important to do with the plot. Especially early in the film, the director grotesquely overuses shots in or of mirrors--again so frequently that it seems that it must have an important plot explanation. In the last half, set on the Riviera, there are fewer mirror shots, but now she chooses to have blurry objects in the foreground in many, many shots. At other times, we glimpse characters in the middle distance, almost hidden by objects in the near foreground. Finally, most of this stuff--hard to see, hard to follow--is reduced further in simple watchability by being edited like a rock video. I wouldn't blame anyone who, first coming to a Suchet Poirot story with this one, swearing off ever watching another.
But ultimately, Poirot and Agatha Christie win out. Even though the gathering-of-the-suspects scene is again jaggedly edited, full of thick, opaque smoke and hampered by an overuse of extreme closeups, the story wins out over the director--who I hope never, EVER again is invited to direct an Hercule Poirot mystery.
"Mystery of the Blue Train" has a pretty good Poirot plot with some colorful supporting players and a few effective performances, but it is so badly directed--no, ATROCIOUSLY directed--as to be a headache-inducing pain to watch. There are no establishing shots of buildings, no wide shots of ballrooms and the like, and there are dozens upon dozens of off-center closeups. Furthermore, many of the closeups are hand-held, an extremely poor choice of technique for a story set in the 1930s. The director also resorts to the very tired effects of an extraordinarily unimaginative mind: virtually every set, including some exteriors, is drenched in thick, almost impenetrable smoke. This is usually "explained" by having one or more of the characters puffing away on cigarettes--so obtrusively (including many crushed out under foot) that you begin to assume that cigarette smoking has something important to do with the plot. Especially early in the film, the director grotesquely overuses shots in or of mirrors--again so frequently that it seems that it must have an important plot explanation. In the last half, set on the Riviera, there are fewer mirror shots, but now she chooses to have blurry objects in the foreground in many, many shots. At other times, we glimpse characters in the middle distance, almost hidden by objects in the near foreground. Finally, most of this stuff--hard to see, hard to follow--is reduced further in simple watchability by being edited like a rock video. I wouldn't blame anyone who, first coming to a Suchet Poirot story with this one, swearing off ever watching another.
But ultimately, Poirot and Agatha Christie win out. Even though the gathering-of-the-suspects scene is again jaggedly edited, full of thick, opaque smoke and hampered by an overuse of extreme closeups, the story wins out over the director--who I hope never, EVER again is invited to direct an Hercule Poirot mystery.
helpful•6418
- Erewhon
- Jun 1, 2006
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
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- Filming locations
- Nene Valley Railway, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England, UK(Nice and Paris railway stations)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
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