My review

Well the movie starts with haunted music with dark, b/w and sepia tone images/scenes which gives us intriguing feeling. Sydney has shown the incident of kidnapping and media coverage in extremely thoughtful and creative establishing shot.

What follows later is equally creative. Be it train scenes, character's introduction and Hercule Poirot's entry. Especially the train departure and background score is awesome as if it's musical journey. Camera moving backwards giving us long shot and slowly moving forward towards train's headlight. It's one of my favorite scenes.

We have already seen Sydney Lumet handling lot of character in confined space in movie '12 Angry Men'. He does it with ease in Orient Express as well. Train compartment hardly gives privilege of camera movement which can make scene interesting. As far as screenplay is concerned he has completely justified the Agatha Chirstie's story. Remarkable attempt.

Only thing bothers is character of Poirot played by Finny. I really find it difficult watching him playing famous detective monsieur Poirot. Certainly there were other options available I guess. Peter Ustinov would have been far better. Except that it's mile stone in mystery movies. There are very few movie which makes us feel as part of the movie. This is one of them. All other actors have played their part very well. I can see why Ingrid Bergman won Oscar. Her interrogation with Hercule was single long shot. Usage of extreme close up was necessary to show her expression clearly.

Cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth deserves applaud for his work. Exquisite train sequences, train interiors scenes have shot with elegance. It must have been one of the challenging shots for cinematographer where they have to be on their toes to shot every frame carefully. It's not that easy for them to shoot train interiors with background scenes running through windows. Of course interior are shot in studio. Every time they had to change placement of camera they have taken care of continuity. At least I didn't find any continuity error. Unlike '12 Angry Men' where Boris Kaufman experimented with camera lenses to shoot small room which gives us claustrophobia, Geoffrey have avoided experiment with wide angle lenses and have concentrated on lighting which enhances the train's rich interiors.

Rest of the crew have done their job very well.

Must watch.