Vintage Poster
The crime of the Orient Express
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Discover the adaptation of Agatha Christie's famous detective novel with this superb Murder on the Orient Express Poster!
- Paper characteristic:
- 🎨 Canvas: world standard in terms of printing and imitating a “painting canvas” appearance .
- By default, the poster contains a 4 cm white border for framing (frame not included). If you don't want it, please choose "without white border".
- ✅ Size: several choices available . ✅
- Great UV resistance .
- Maximum color vibrancy, without reflections .
- Recycled paper, guaranteeing respect for the environment.
- Poster carefully packaged and delivered in a protective tube for total protection .
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FREE STANDARD DELIVERY .
⚠️ Frame not included. ⚠️
Description of this Murder on the Orient Express Poster
The opening of the film shows newspaper clippings of the 1930 kidnapping of Daisy Armstrong, who is later found murdered.
In December 1935, Hercule Poirot, after solving a case for a British army garrison in Jordan, had to travel to London on the Orient Express from Istanbul and met his old friend Signor Bianchi, a director of the company owner of the line who offers him a compartment. The other passengers are the American widow Harriet Belinda Hubbard, the English governess Mary Debenham, the Swedish missionary Greta Ohlsson, the American businessman Samuel Ratchett, with his secretary/translator Hector McQueen and the English valet Edward Beddoes; Italian-American car salesman Antonio (“Gino”) Foscarelli; the old Russian princess Natalia Dragomiroff and her German servant Hildegarde Schmidt; Hungarian Count Rudolf Andrenyi and his wife Elena; Colonel John Arbuthnott of the British Indian Army; and American theatrical agent Cyrus Hardman.
The morning after the train leaves, Ratchett attempts to secure Poirot's services as a bodyguard for $15,000 because he has received death threats. Poirot declines Ratchett's offer, telling him: "...my interest in your matter is...diminishing." That night, Bianchi gives his compartment to Poirot and shares a carriage with Stavros Constantine, a Greek doctor. The train is stopped by a snowdrift between Vinkovci and Brod in Yugoslavia, and Poirot is roused from sleep several times, including once by a scream from Ratchett's cabin. The next morning, Ratchett is found stabbed to death, and Bianchi asks Poirot to solve the case. Poirot seeks help from Doctor Constantine, who establishes that Ratchett was stabbed 12 times in a distorted pattern and with seemingly varying accuracy and lethality.
A fragment of a letter, found at the crime scene, reveals that Ratchett was in fact Lanfranco Cassetti, a gangster who, five years earlier, had planned the kidnapping and murder of Daisy Armstrong, the granddaughter of the wealthy colonel of the British Army Hamish Armstrong and his American wife Sonia. Cassetti enlisted the help of a fellow mobster to kidnap and kill Daisy, but then betrayed him and fled the country with the ransom money; he was only unmasked the day before his partner's execution. Overwhelmed by grief, a pregnant Mrs. Armstrong gave birth prematurely to a stillborn baby and died. Colonel Armstrong, consumed by grief over the loss of his family, commits suicide. A French servant named Paulette, wrongly suspected of complicity in the kidnapping, had also committed suicide to avoid arrest, but was later found innocent. Other clues are discovered, including a pipe cleaner, a handkerchief with the initial "H", Cassetti's broken watch and a conductor's costume. Poirot's timeline of the passengers' activities from the previous night indicates that Cassetti was murdered around 1:15 a.m., at which time the watch was broken and the scream was heard. As the car was isolated all night, the murderer must be one of its passengers or the French driver of the train, Pierre Michel. Ms. Hubbard reports that she detected a man in her room and later found the bloody knife thrown into her compartment. Foscarelli dramatically implies that the murder is most likely part of a mafia feud.
Poirot questions the passengers and Pierre. He learns that McQueen is the son of the prosecutor in the Armstrong case and that he loved Mrs. Armstrong very much; that Beddoes was a drummer in the British army; that Greta Ohlsson appears to have limited knowledge of English but has been to America; that Countess Andrenyi is of German origin and that her maiden name is Grünwald (Greenwood in German, Mrs. Armstrong's maiden name). Pierre Michel's daughter died five years earlier of scarlet fever. Colonel Arbuthnott, who knows of Armstrong's military decorations, reveals his intention to marry Miss Debenham once he divorces his cheating wife, which he believes is the subject of the enigmatic discussion that Poirot heard in Istanbul. When Poirot questions Princess Dragomiroff, he discovers that she was a friend of Linda Arden, a retired American actress and mother of Mrs. Armstrong; the princess was Sonia's godmother. He learns that the Armstrongs had a butler, a secretary, a cook, a driver and a nanny. Poirot flatters the princess's maid, Schmidt, by remarking how good a cook she is, which destabilizes her. Foscarelli denies having been a driver. Hardman reveals that he is, in fact, a Pinkerton detective hired as a bodyguard by Cassetti. When Poirot shows him Paulette's photo, he is visibly moved.
Poirot gathers the suspects and describes two solutions to the murder. He advises them not to automatically rule out any of them. The first suggests that Cassetti's murder was the result of a mafia feud: an unknown person disguised himself as a train conductor, stabbed Ratchett/Cassetti and, ignoring the uniform coat, the undetected assailant s escaped from the train through the snow. This hypothesis is rejected by Bianchi and Dr. Constantine who consider it absurd, but Poirot tells them that they can reconsider this opinion.
The second solution, more complex and far-reaching, links all the stagecoach suspects to the Armstrong affair. In addition to the self-incriminating revelations that Poirot managed to extract from Hardman, McQueen, Schmidt and the princess, the detective has deduced that Countess Elena is in fact Mrs. Armstrong's younger sister, Helena. The princess claimed that the Armstrongs' secretary was a "Miss Freebody"; it is in fact Mary Debenham, loosely associated with the famous British department store (known at the time as "Debenhams and Freebody"). Beddoes was Armstrong's army butler; Greta Ohlsson was Daisy's nanny; Colonel Arbuthnott was Armstrong's close army friend; Foscarelli was the family driver; Pierre was Paulette's father; Hardman was a police officer in love with Paulette; and Mrs. Hubbard is actually Linda Arden, Mrs. Armstrong's mother - and arguably the mastermind of this whole plan. McQueen had drugged Cassetti, rendering him unconscious and allowing the conspirators to jointly murder him (the Andrenyis stabbing together), totaling 12 – a typical jury's complement – wounds of varying damage. The scream and broken watch were provided by McQueen to persuade Poirot that the murder had taken place earlier, when the other suspects were out of danger. In fact, the suspects teamed up to commit the murder once Poirot went back to sleep, after two hours. The only passengers not involved in the murder are Signor Bianchi and Doctor Constantine.
Poirot asks Bianchi to choose a solution before the train is freed from the snowdrift, but admits that the Yugoslav police will much prefer the simple solution. Bianchi, in sympathy with the suspects after learning how evil Cassetti was, offers the first solution, and Dr. Constantine and Poirot agree, although he will have to wrestle with his conscience. The train is then, somewhat symbolically, freed from the snowdrift and resumes its journey.
