Jesus, look at it, Hercule Poirot lets these people go, for what? becouse killing a man is sometime right? Hell no, During the film i thought the only reason he let them go were, well becouse is was out number, they were 12, he was on, not countint the doctor and the train owner.
What does this tale of mruder incounter tells us? That murder is O.K.
We should live a world in which all actions depicted in movies are moral. That's a popular belief by people who don't trust their own ability to reason through specific circumstances, or who haven't developed any sense of personal morality. Seems like there's two options for you:
1) Watch only movies made prior to 1960 when the Hays Code was still in effect and all neer-do-wells had to be punished before the credits rolled, or....
2) You could find a place that legislates that kind of morality in the current day. Let's think of all the rigorously moral countries we can: hmmmm.... Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Iran, several other middle-eastern fundamentalist muslim countries, China and Korea, and the SOuthern U.S.. Why don't you move to one of those places where you'll be in like-minded (no-minded) company?
Or you could just stay where you are and develop your mind...
>>> We should live a world in which all actions depicted in movies are moral. That's a popular belief by people who don't trust their own ability to reason through specific circumstances, or who haven't developed any sense of personal morality. Seems like there's two options for you
What a condescending response. And totally misses the OP's point.
http://tinyurl.com/cjsy86c
"and develop your mind..."?!
and developing the mind means condoning murder?
one can understand the outcome in book and movie, but that is not the same-thing as what you argue in your reply to OP. as other person said in reply to you, you missed the point
We should live a world in which all actions depicted in movies are moral. That's a popular belief by people who don't trust their own ability to reason through specific circumstances, or who haven't developed any sense of personal morality. Seems like there's two options for you:
1) Watch only movies made prior to 1960 when the Hays Code was still in effect and all neer-do-wells had to be punished before the credits rolled, or....
2) You could find a place that legislates that kind of morality in the current day. Let's think of all the rigorously moral countries we can: hmmmm.... Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Iran, several other middle-eastern fundamentalist muslim countries, China and Korea, and the SOuthern U.S.. Why don't you move to one of those places where you'll be in like-minded (no-minded) company?
Or you could just stay where you are and develop your mind...
Erm, there is another problem. You can only try one person for murder, and Poirot could not be certain which one of the twelve actually killed him.
Schrodinger's cat is dead. Or is it...
You've raised a very interesting point, there. But surely, if that was true (only one person can be tried for a murder), all gangland etc. criminals would use that method to avoid prosecution...
Obviously, the criminal law differs markedly around the world, but I would assume in this area that the intent of the law would be the same. I recall from many years ago when I studied law (although I must admit that I have never practised in Criminal Law), there is a provision to cover this sort of scenario, and that they could all individually be charged with Ratchett's murder. I looked it up on the web and it goes like this: "Where 2 or more persons form a common intention to prosecute an unlawful purpose in conjunction with one another, and in the prosecution of such purpose a crime is committed of such a nature that its commission was a probable consequence of the prosecution of such purpose, each of them is deemed to have committed the crime."
Logically, though, there would be practical problems - it is less likely that someone frail, like Princess Dragamiroff, would have stabbed Ratchett with a force equal to that of, say, Colonal Arbuthnot. Nevertheless, I think the fact that they all intended to cause Ratchett's death and actively took part in the conspiracy and act of murder would be enough. Even if one of them could come up with evidence (eg. "he was no longer breathing when I stabbed him"), they would be done for aiding, which is a full charge of murder anyway.
I think that they wanted to make sure that they all took joint responsibility for Ratchett's death (otherwise, surely they'd have hired a hit man???), which is why I recall they went to some effort so that (as Poirot says in the book) "[t]hey themselves would never know which blow actually killed him".
For the record, I think that it was a fantastic and intricate ending. It's probably my favourite Agatha Christie novel. It's not like we always see the perpetrator dragged off by the police anyway. In a fair proportion of hers and other's novels, the guilty party commits suicide and it is portrayed as a dignified exit (eg. Death on the Nile). I think it's a really interesting idea to create a whodunnit where the reader / viewer actually develops identification with and sympathy for the murderer(s). Any reader who is inordinately sensitive about the morality of homicide should probably choose another genre!
I absolutely loved the ending. In fact it was one of several contributing factors that turned my preliminary mental vote of 7 into an 8. Back to the ending. Whether its moral or not...you have to decide for yourself, but I think its beauty lies in the fact that it causes us to confront this deep moral issue in a safe, fun murder mystery environment. Sure its a very uncomfortable question, but I think it truly needs to be asked and this was the perfect tool to lay it on the table.
share>>Any reader who is inordinately sensitive about the morality of homicide should probably choose another genre!
Excellent point, Duchess!
Excellent point, Duchess!
omg this is so weird, i came on this board last night (never been on it before) and was wondering what would actually happen if 12 people killed someone like this, so meant to ask my law teacher today...
half way through the lesson ANOTHER guy in my class asked what would happen in this exact scenario (without mentioning the book) to which my law teacher asked if he was a fan of agatha christie because it actually happened in one of her books! i was like :O! lol...
anyway odd conicendes aside, according to my law teacher (who is a retired lawyer) the current standing (don't no what it was then) is that if they cannot find which precise blow killed him then all of them would be tried for attempted murder.
like the case of Re: A conjoined twins, all the surgeons put there hand on the knife so no one individual person would have individual blame (altho the surgeons wern't tried) but the principles kinda the same!
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I challenge ANYONE not to let them go! Think about it: this man was responsible not only for the murder of an infant, but the subsequent FOUR deaths that followed. Can anyone say with a straight face that they wouldn't do the same if they lost 5 of their own loved ones to an unrepentant murderer who profited from his actions?! Had I been Poirot, once I established the guilt of Ratchett, I would have recused myself from the case and said something the the effect of, "Who did it? I don't care! Karma's a bitch!"
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I wouldn't for the simple reason you don't want law enforcement to arbitraly decide: that guy needed killin'. No need to make arrest.
Because once you defer that power to them, they will start letting people get killed that you don't think 'needed killin'. And you don't get to bitch about it since you already decided they should have the authority to pick and choose. Of course what invariably happens is you get hypocrits that do complain about it, because when they said vigialante justice is okay, no one they liked was supposed to be the vicitm of it.
You bring them in, you let the jury decide. And as you say, what are the odds they'll convict?
Also there's the question of jurisdiction: with the train snowbound and the freezing cold compartment playing hell with ascertaining the time of death, the question of WHERE Cassetti/Ratchett was murdered would come into play. It has been some years since I last read the novel but I think the Bianchi character (whose name in the book is M Bouc) says something about the police of various locales competing to solve a notorious case and dragging the railroad through the mud in the process.
At the end of the day, Christie created a scenario in which even she did not know which of the twelve "executioners" actually killed the man. And Poirot, being a private detective, might know what happened, but he can't prove it, especially with a trainload of lies and red herrings.
Never mess with a middle-aged, Bipolar queen with AIDS and an attitude problem!
roflol ><
Not true. You can try as many people for a murder as participated in the act.
The reason Poirot lets the passengers get away with this is because he firmly believes that Ratchett only escaped death in America because of his money and his hold over certain people. Mrs. Hubbard puts it best: "Society had condemned him--we were only carrying out the sentence."
At this point in her career, Christie had produced thirteen full length novels and six short story collections (despite the fact that it was sold as a novel, I consider The Big Four to be a short story collection). Ratchett is unique among most of Christie's victims up to this point is that he himself is an escaped murderer. Emily Inglethorpe is autocratic and bossy, Roger Ackroyd is stubborn and miserly, Ruth Kettering is vain and selfish, Lord Edgware is sadistic and cruel, but none of them are murderers, any more than Maggie Buckley or the many victims in her short stories and non-Poirot novels up until now are.
The only other escaped murderer before Ratchett is Paul Renauld, and his murderer is killed while attempting a second murder, rather than being guillotined for the first crime (the murder takes place in France, not England).
Poirot does not approve of private individuals deciding for themselves who deserves to live and who does not; such people, he says, "have usurped the function of Le Bon Dieu". But here we have a man who only escaped condemnation through treachery and deceit. Society has indeed condemned him--Poirot mentions that he would have been lynched had he not fled the United States--and since the other passengers were in a unique situation, Poirot is willing to let their brand of justice stand.
Commodore,
The Manson family would be surprised to learn that only one person can be tried for a murder, since six of them were convicted of the Tate-LaBianca killings.
"It ain't dying I'm talking about, it's LIVING!"
Captain Augustus McCrae
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Commodore, all of the passengers killed Retchett. They were all related in some way to the little Armstrong girl who was killed.
sharePoirot was asked by his friend, Signor Bianchi, the Orient Express director, to find out the killer. After questioning everyone, Poirot came up with a simple solution (killer escaped leaving a pullman uniform behind) and a more complex solution (12 people connected to the victim). He left the fate up to Signor Bianchi to make the decision on the killer(s). Bianchi chose the simple solution.
Poirot was a detective for hire - not a policeman with the authority to make arrests. So he couldn't have let the killer(s) go free as suggested.
As in a lot of Poirot mysteries he cannot 'prove' his solution is correct, and most goverments in being faced with one phantom murderer or 12 possible killers would go for the simple answer.
Also you can tell Poirot feels for the 12, and while he doesn't agree with their killing - is not got to force them to suffer anymore then they already have. If you watch the beginning of the movie, Cassetti did more then kill one child - he ruined the lives of all 12 people with his crime.
I agree, afterall even at the end he says to Bianchi, now i must go wrestle with my concience. I mean, this guy had killed a little girl and several other people died as a consequence and he had escaped trial, i believe the killing was justified. great ending
"gotcha suckers!"
It's not the worst ending ever. I think you should take that back!
I loved the ending, this is one of Christie's best Poirot novels.
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You also have to consider the time the book was written. For people who had lived through war and also lived with the death penalty, a sense of "natural" justice often ran through the mysteries of Christie and other writers.
Also, it was Agatha Christie who managed to best utilise the different variations of killers. The victim, the detective, the narrator, anyone and everyone could be suspected by the reader and any method of murder could be used, including capital punishment itself.
Considering the amount of books that Christie wrote, we should be grateful of Christie's ingenuity. As Billy Wilder said about his film version of "Witness for the Prosecution", Agatha Christie was absolutely brilliant at plot construction. She was also the best at deceiving the reader, while never lying to them, even if she wasn't the most consistent of writers in later years.
I can't believe anyone would think "Murder on the Orient Express" had a bad ending. It wasn't a 'happy ending' where the bad guy is sent to jail or hanged or whatever, but this isn't a typical story. As all the previous posters have already said (much better than I could), this is not a black and white story. This movie is all about shades of grey. I, like Poirot, think that it was wrong what they did, and yet I feel for them. The murderer killed a child (one of the worst crimes in my opinion), which lead to the deaths of several other people, and ruined others. The guy deserved punishment.
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i thought it wasn't the best ending as i preferred it to be a definate murderer. however, i think it made sense more than if no-one would do it. its not one of agatha christie's best conclusions, but i think for the story, it was alright
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading
Without trying to give too much away, if the question of morality in dealing with murder interests you, I suggest reading Agatha's Christie's novel
Curtain.
can't believe anyone would think "Murder on the Orient Express" had a bad ending. It wasn't a 'happy ending' where the bad guy is sent to jail or hanged or whatever, but this isn't a typical story. As all the previous posters have already said (much better than I could), this is not a black and white story. This movie is all about shades of grey. I, like Poirot, think that it was wrong what they did, and yet I feel for them. The murderer killed a child (one of the worst crimes in my opinion), which lead to the deaths of several other people, and ruined others. The guy deserved punishment.
The inspiraton for the story came from America's most infamous crime-the Lindbergh Baby killing. It was her belief that there were two people involved-one who kidnaaped the child and another who killed her.
by - jaybabb on Sun Aug 2 2009 10:34:25
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You have the gender of the Lindbergh infant wrong.
Yes-you are right-the Lindbergh baby was a boy-however in the book and movie-the baby was a girl-perhaps that's what I had in mind when I wrote this post.
1+1=2****2+2=4****That is the truth your honor*****the truth for help me God
Jay
Actually, I think the film-makers missed the point completely.
Agatha Christie occasionally liked to set the traditional crime story on its head (e.g. Roger Ackroyd or The Mousetrap). This was one of those stories.
This was a trial and execution by 12 people. Poirot had 13 suspects; his task was to find the one who didn't do it. (If following the book, that would have been the Michael York character - who in the film unnecessarily helps his wife with her knife stroke.
You are mistaken. Jacqueline Bisset's character was the innocent one in the book. Her husband took her place in the crime to protect her.
shareFirst, lets assume we believe in capital punishment, the death penalty. Who better to administer the punishment than the survivors or those closely affected by the criminal's act. Is killing right? Who can say for sure? In this plot, the criminal is without question guilty of a terrible crime. Some would say the killing was too easy on the criminal as he was drugged and did not suffer enough. This is just a movie but the horror of losing a loved one throught the criminal act of another person is hard to imagine for one who has not experienced it oneself. The justice system failed or this man would not be on this train free. Murder is not O.K. but justice was served.
shareHave a think about the number of conspirators. Twelve. What else is made up of 12 of our peers?
I'll give you a hint, it starts with the letter J.
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I think the matter was that the Casetti has evaded justice when he was certainly guilty and the 12 took it upon themselves to administer justice. And in the end of the book, they justify even more, because Mrs. Hubbard tells Poirot how she wanted to make sure Casetti never hurt another child and that the killing was for all the children her hurt, not just Daisy Armstrong.
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No, I'm not, but in the case of Casetti, the justice system failed, and he was able to get away without any punishment whatsoever. I'm not saying it's ok to go out and lynch people, but in that particular instance, I believe it was justified. And anyway, the book shows that the 12's intentions were much more than revenge, it's simply a case of if you believe in "The ends justify the means"
shareIt was a justified vigilant-type murder. What comes around goes around. He had it coming. He got what he deserved.
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I liked this ending, i think they did a good job with it. No, murder isn't right, but then again in a movie like this, i think it was appropriate and in good taste. Come on this is like my fav movie, it was really good for an adaptation of an Agatha cristie book, a lot of the other adaptations are crap, trust me, Ive seen like at least ten others....
agatha christie for president!
An Agatha Christie whodunnit, especially one as witty and stylish as this one, is not the forum for a real discussion of capital punishment. The revelation of the murderer is one of the greatest in all detective stories, and the decision to let them go is a nice twist. As Poirot says, he was "perhaps deservedly murdered". Clearly, at that time, capital punishment existed everywhere so obviously he made the decision that the murder was justified. In the book, Christie adds it to make for a nice ending; in the film, it leads to that great scene of the clinking wine glasses. As And Then There Were None is really a thriller and Witness for the Prosecution a drama with a twist, this is really the only good Christie whodunnit film. And it is great. And Finney is the definitive Poirot so far...much better than Suchet on television who is so annoying.
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