Mindy Carlson, author of the award-nominated mystery novel HER DYING DAY, joins host Emily J. Edwards to discuss two of the most famous adaptations of Agatha Christie’s opus, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS. The 1974, Sidney Lumet-directed vehicle starring Albert Finney, Sean Connery, Vanessa Redgrave, and Ingrid Bergman was nominated for, and won, countless Oscars. Oscar winner Kenneth Branagh boldly chose to launch his career as Poirot with a remake that was nominated for, uh, slightly less prestigious awards. We get into it in this week’s episode!
Catch Mindy here:
https://www.instagram.com/mindycarlsonauthor
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorMindyCarlson
Transcript:
Emily Edwards (she/her): Greetings, gumshoes, and welcome to another episode of Silver Screen Sleuths. I am your host, Emily Edwards, and this is the podcast where I, a mystery author, talk to other mystery and thriller authors about mystery and thriller movies and television shows. It’s a convoluted conceit that doesn’t really show up in a log line particularly well, but here you are listening. So thank you so much for all of your dedication. And joy. With me today is an absolutely delightful author that I met earlier this year at my first ever mystery conference. Mindy Carlson. How are you?
Mindy Carlson
I’m doing great. How are you doing?
Emily Edwards (she/her): I I’m so well. I thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me. We have a lot of like internet mutuals but this is really my first time getting down and and chatting with you.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah, no, I so Tony Wirt, who did your Clue episode, I completely I was so angry at him for choosing Clue because it’s my favorite movie as well. And being the humor mystery author, I was like, Well that’s a natural thing. And then he’s he was like, I’ve already picked it. And I was like, I could not hate you more right now.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right. reached out to like two or three people to begin with and I was like, there’s gonna be kind of a knockdown drag out to get to Clue because it is, I think, just like the the totem we put on the shelf of what we all want to achieve.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. yeah. I mean it’s brilliant. It’s a brilliant movie and but you know like he got there first.
Emily Edwards (she/her): But you ended up choosing essentially a double feature for us to discuss because Murder on the Orient Express is one of the most famous mystery novels ever written, turned into one of the most famous mystery movies ever made. And then Kenneth Branagh had the chutzpah to launch his Poirot with redoing an Albert Finney Poirot. And you’re just like, man, what’s it like to have the confidence of Kenneth Branaugh over here.
Mindy Carlson
Right. I mean, that it was that was bold. And I didn’t so when I first picked this movie, I was very aware of the David Suchet version and the Kenneth Brana version, but I hadn’t watched the Albert Finney version. It was it was just like off of my radar. Albert Finney is going to be Daddy Warbucks to me, or he’s gonna be Aaron Brockovich’s boss. So like to picture that kind of
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson
baritone, you know, strident voice in like a sort of a higher pitched French Belgian accent. I was I did not have high hopes. I like the bar that I set was pretty low for this, but I was really blown away by the movie when I watched it. It was I was really impressed. And then I did research about it and it won like tons of awards.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson
It won like Ingrid Berwin won Oscar for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA and like and Albert Finney was nominated for BAFTA’s and Sydney Lumay, the director, was like I mean it had like this whole list of different things. And you look at like Kenneth Brana’s version and what it got nominated for, and it’s all of these very little awards. One of which my favorite one was the wrote it down because I knew I was gonna forget it. It was the Alliance of Women Film Journalist and it won the nomination or it was a nominee for the sequel or remake that shouldn’t have been made. So I was like, ooh, ou ouch.
Emily Edwards (she/her): that’s so mean, but I love it at the same time.
Mindy Carlson
I know, it’s like number one, they have that category. Like Yeah, he’s not the only one. So don’t feel like he was being picked on necessarily, but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. This happens every year. Ha we didn’t create this just for this movie. It just f slots in so perfectly.
Mindy Carlson
It perfectly. Yeah, although if you wanna watch a pretty picture. Version is gorgeous. The cinematography is, I mean, it’s bananas. He did it on 65 millimeter panoramic film. You know, every shot is set up to be a gorgeous portrait. there’s a scene near the end where he’s sitting with Daisy Ridley and the open coach, and the camera comes down, and then there’s a bookend scene where the camera comes up.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’s gorgeous. Yes!
Mindy Carlson
And then yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, I mean that cinematographer earned every single cent that they earned from making that movie. I was just watching it going like it hit like the we’ll get into it later. But like I agree, we were chatting a little bit before we started recording, in that I agree with you that if you want to ask me who my Poirot is, I have a ranking. David Suchet, I think, comes head and bo shoulders above pretty much anyone else for anybody who’s really into mysteries. But I think that’s a uniquely David Suche kind of thing where he was like, I this is my career, I’m going to play this character. And he committed so much of his life to doing so.
Mindy Carlson
100%. a hundred percent. Yeah. I mean you th you think of Pro Row and you are envisioning David Suchet. And you know, he was in a Doctor Who episode without his mustache. And it took me forever to figure out that that I know this guy. Cause he had a British accent. Because David Suchet is actually British and he does not have a mustache. And I have watched every Pro Row episode that he is in, and I was like, something about this guy. He just
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes.
Mindy Carlson
He’s like he’s ringing a bell for me. So I mean
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’s like when you see a famous person or like a congressman or something, like out in the wild, and you’re like, maybe I went to high school with them, or there’s someone wildly famous and important. And David Suchet without the mustache is, I know you from somewhere, but I don’t know where.
Mindy Carlson
I know Yeah, I know you from somewhere, but but yeah, no, he’s just such an impressive Poirot. And I but you know, I watched his his version of Murder on the Orient Express and I I liked all of it. I did not like the ending as much as I liked Albert Finney’s version.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, I f you know, I reread the book too in preparation for this because I I had read it, but you know, a million bajillion years ago. And the book is, I mean, wonderful. We it’s hard to fault Dame Aggie, even though sometimes I want to. Like, you know, you always just want to be like, really? You were really digging into Italians for this one, Dame Aggie. Like
Mindy Carlson
for sure. yeah, no, she’s she’s got some problems. She’s she had some views that are now extremely outdated and small minded for sure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. But yeah, I just wanted to compare it to, you know, like the text to the remake to the remake of the remake. so the Albert Finney one is, I would say, probably the closest to the book in plot and resolution. And and, you know, which I appreciate. It, you know, it it you would think.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yes, hundred percent.
Emily Edwards (she/her): This is one of those books that I think translates really well to screen because there are so many frickin’ characters that at a certain point you’re like, Is it Natalia? Is it Helena? Is it Elena? Is it this person? That’s what thankfully when you can see people’s faces, it makes a hell of a lot more sense.
Mindy Carlson
Absolutely. And I mean, in both in all of the movie versions, the costumers did a phenomenal job of of dressing these people. I mean, they all have distinct looks, which I think helps with their distinct personalities and us to be able to like, you know, this person and this person and these two are together. And so I appreciated that quite a bit.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I think to me, David Suchet gets the costuming, the demeanor, the the the politic, the politeness, the deference of Poirot across multiple books and multiple texts better than anybody else who I think has ever played Poirot.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): To me, and this might be heretical to people listening, I do not like the Albert Finney depiction of Poirot. He’s just really messy.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Ha ha. He’s it I find his depiction of Poirot very very stiff. Like Poirot has like braced him, you know, and but Finney was playing it as though Poirot had had a shoulder war wound. so he was playing because because Poirot has been through the war, I mean, and that is that is canon, but he was playing it that he had that he had wounded his shoulder, so he was a little like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Gotcha. Right.
Mindy Carlson
crunched and you know a little necklace as they you know so but but I mean I also have to give Albert Finney some huge props because at the same time that he was doing this he was in a play so he was performing okay and this is from an interview with Sydney Lumet that I watched in preparation for this it this is bananas he was in this play
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Mindy Carlson
And he would perform the play. And then they would they rented an ambulance for him. And he would get on the gurney of the ambulance and they would transport him from the play site through the streets and w however long they needed to go to get to wherever the filming site was. And he would sleep on the gurney. And the makeup artist.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my lord.
Mindy Carlson
That were applying the major prosthetics to his face, because like that nose is not his nose, his cheeks, that is not his cheeks. they would apply all these major prosthetics to him in the ambulance as he’s asleep, going to the film site. And then they would wheel him on the gurney into the makeup room and do the fine details and stuff. Wake him up, feed him breakfast, and get him out to perform.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Huh. Word. That is bananas and not worth it. Like, just delay filming for Christ’s sake.
Mindy Carlson
Yep. They Yeah, apparently they had a like a limited time and a lit like people were and you know this happens to be the one of the one the only version where Agatha Christie is alive during the filming. So she was a consultant on it. And so I think there was a certain kind of like Agatha’s schedule and all of the different other characters because you’re talking about like Vanessa Redgrave and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right. That’s true. Yes. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
Ingrid Bergman and Sean Connery and John Gilgood, you know, all of these people that are like they’re huge stars in their own right. And they, I mean, to k to actually coordinate all of their schedules as well, I mean, I’m sure they were kind of like, okay, Albert, I know this is asking a lot of you, but hear me out. We’re gonna we’re gonna.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. What if?
Mindy Carlson
We will get you from site A to site B. How does that sound? And I can only imagine later when he comes out and it’s like an ambulance or if he knew it was gonna be an ambulance. But like, okay.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, he just turns and looks at Sydney and is like, This, this is what you it couldn’t be a town car. Like, what is going on? Y you can sleep on the gurdy. Sydney LeMay is one of my favorite directors. I love everything he’s ever done. Like he he really understands the human condition, in my opinion, better than most other people who have made movies in that era. And he always tries to really dial home.
Mindy Carlson
No well, at least you can sleep flat.
Emily Edwards (she/her): The gravity of what is happening. to me, it it seems odd at the time that people would kind of again, that long list of incredible actors that would dabble in something like a costume drama, which is essentially what this is. And for not a lot of money. I’m sorry. How much?
Mindy Carlson
yeah. And for not a lot of money. Do you know how much they all got paid? You know how much they got paid? Each. Except for Sean Connery and Albert Finney. They got paid more because they were headliner star. Like Sean Connery is James Bond. Everybody else got paid $100,000 each and it created a parody on the set. So nobody felt elevated above anybody else. And it helped with the mood and how people got along.
Emily Edwards (she/her): That’s nothing. Yeah. That’s incredible. That’s nothing. That’s just you know, I know we’re going in nineteen seventy-four, but it was nothing.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. It’s nothing. No, no, it’s absolutely nothing. I mean, back in nineteen seventy four, like each of them could have commanded easily three quarters of a million. No problem.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, easily. So little. And then and then to get into period garb, tons of makeup. And again, this is taking place on a train. And I don’t know if like clearly the Branno one is set or else it is the world’s largest train car that has ever been created for any reason because that thing was like 30 feet wide when they needed it to be.
Mindy Carlson
It’s so little. Mm-hmm. Yeah, they it was set in London. I think at Pinewood Studios.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. So like but still condensed because you have to create that claustrophobia that happens on a train car. And to get into those skirts, those dresses, those courses, the makeup, the prosthetics, and and to to have to share billing, which most of these people were probably not familiar with at the time. Man, that’s a tough sell for to be like, and yeah, and you might have, I don’t know, like Michael York had what?
Mindy Carlson
Hundred percent.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Eight lines in the entire movie?
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. And a lot of expressions. Well, that final soliloquy of Poirot’s where he’s going through the the solution of it, that is eight script pages long. So you think each page of script would be one minute of talking. That’s so it’s eight minutes of talking, and you’re doing that in many takes. You’re like he’s you’re doing it over and over and over. And
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
they’re cutting to everybody’s faces. They’re doing these like sort of cut shots. And you they have to like have expressions like they’ve never heard this before. You know, like like, my God, he’s figuring it out.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. no. Like truthfully, these kinds of movies must be such a bear in order to film. They must, you know, again, we’re talking about the costuming, we’re talking about the tight sets, we’re talking about being around people that you may not like in very close quarters for a very long time. I, you know, I imagine much of the pitch has to be like, so you’re gonna be working with Sean Connery, Albert Finney, and Sidney Lumay. Are you in? And they just have to be like, Yeah, I’m not going to turn that down.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m not I’m not turning that down. But yeah, it’s so interesting though, because they did this, they f they filmed this in France and well they filmed this in England, but they went to France and managed to find one of the last train cars from that era and had and took it apart, shipped it to the filming location, and then reassembled it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. That’s amazing.
Mindy Carlson
So they actually so the train car is authentic. And of course for Kenneth Brana’s version, that train car is long gone. Like they had to rebuild everything and and this I mean, the sets are magnificent. It’s beautifully lit. It’s, you know, Caravaggio level, like, you know, lighting and yeah, it’s amazing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Opulence and delighting and yeah. I wonder if he started with Murder on the Orient Express because they were relaunching the Venice, you know, Orient Express train line, which, if you want to go on it, it costs something like $25,000 per person.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. It’s it’s yeah, it is a bucket list sort of thing. It’s if you win the lottery, this is what you do with it. You know, you buy ’cause two tickets is fifty thousand dollars.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. It’s a crap ton of money. And I wonder if they supplied the train cars or any sort of like features. I don’t know. I should probably look this up. but it it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if there was some sort of like lovely handshake deal of we have this wildly opulent thing. Yeah. Exactly. Like f
Mindy Carlson
I don’t know. Yeah. for sh I mean that’s yeah, I mean that’s how Hollywood runs, right? Is like you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. But like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Fun little detail of like every single Michael Bay movie is actually paid for in product placement before he actually starts showing. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
For sure. I mean, are you kidding me? Michael Bay with like one explosion every 30 seconds in every movie he’s ever done. Those things are expensive. I mean, I’m sure the studio is like, okay, fine, like we’ll let you do what you want to do, but you gotta have like we’re not putting out more than this amount of money to you. Like you’ve gotta make up your explosion budget is separate and you’re responsible for it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Exactly. And he’s like Mm-hmm. Yeah. The Dodge Charger running into a Pepsi machine, running into a thing, like all of that is paid for and it pays for like his movies to be made, which is I think brilliant if you’re not doing something that’s like artful.
Mindy Carlson
That’s right. a hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. I mean, this though, yeah. I mean it it’s sort of interesting because this is kind of Kenneth Brano’s version is kind of like a wonderful advertisement for this route, you know, because you have like the wind blowing and the beautiful windswept snow and the beautiful train cars in that deep, deep blue.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. I would do it in a second. Are you kidding me? Like if I had that kind of money to throw around, I’m sure I’d buy, you know, like healthcare first, but I would also absolutely like pony up for doing that right. Because it also takes days. It’s not like, you know, how we think of travel, which again, they they really grasp the understand passage of time in all of these movies where once they are snowbound for more than 12 hours, the
Mindy Carlson
yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): The panic that sets in is so well done because it is both just an understandable panic of you are trapped with strangers that you don’t like in extremely close quarters for a very long time. And also do su the the text of the novel does such an excellent job of going, one of the reasons why the panic is exacerbating is because they all murdered a fella and they need to get away with it.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yep. Well, they’ve murdered a fella and they happen to be in close quarters with the world’s greatest detective and the story is unraveling. It’s like a sweater that you can see going like they are frantic to get out of there and be able to escape from whatever repercussions.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. It is the least lucky thing that could possibly ever happen to you if you were going to commit a murder on a moving train. It’s just like look who’s just hopped on last minute on this train that we’re gonna be on. God damn it. Like, could you imagine the panic?
Mindy Carlson
Hundred percent. Yeah. Last last minute, son of a bitch. I mean it’s it is so I I really like how a lot of the I mean, and this is down to Agatha Christie as far as like a lot of her lines going where it’s the synergy or sick I don’t know, symmetry between having twelve people be the murderers and twelve people on a jury and having that pointed out by Colonel Arbuthnot, but in the in Kenneth Brano’s they made him a doctor, Dr. Arbuthnot. you know, having that pointed out is like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
So sweet. Like as a writer, I’m like, like that’s I love that kind of like, this is just such a wonderful little like, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, she she she really wa you know, I th one of the things that I discussed with my friend David Avalone, who was on for Miller’s Crossing, is that a lot of crime fiction, I would say Agatha gets so much credit for her writing, and understandably so, because there was a certain titillation for being a woman and being an older woman who’s dealing with something seedy like. crime and murder. And so there’s a certain amount of titillation of just going like, and it’s not, and aside from like marples, they’re not terribly cozy. You know, she does talk about murder on the page. It can be very, very brutal. And so there was a certain titillation there, and especially because she knew more about poisons than even people who were working in police forces at the time. And then she turned out to be really, really, really freaking good at it and just selling books, just hand over fist to the point of unbelievable wealth that we cannot imagine this day and age as authors.
Mindy Carlson
No, it’s pretty brutal. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): But I think one of the things that I find the most interesting about her is that like she is so deft at the symbolism. And a lot of crime fiction does not get the credit it deserves for being good literature. And I would say that goes across the board for all genres. But for some reason, I really maybe it’s because I’m a crime writer and I often feel wronged by the universe. But like I feel like crime fiction really sometimes does not get the credit it deserves for being. well thought out, extremely nuanced understanding of like society at large. And Aggie does it better than pretty much any like that golden age is just a phenomenal understanding of the world that she’s living in.
Mindy Carlson
I think that she was really gifted at observing her surroundings and the people that were in them and being able to almost categorize them into their stereotypes. And I feel like he she took a lot of the world around her and was like, okay, well I’m gonna populate my books with these people. Like I mean, I obviously don’t know her and never met her, even though we were alive at the same time, which is odd to my brain. But
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. It’s one of those brain twisty things.
Mindy Carlson
Like, that’s so interesting. but I feel like she I probably thought about structure a lot, about like, okay, I’m setting this up and these are the emotional, psychological dynamics at play. And this is how I’m going to like, you know, j you know, pull the jingle blocks out of this and have it topple down.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Like I I it’s interesting that probably I would say, I would venture to say that her two most famous books are Murder on the Orient Express and probably and Then There Were None. And like if you’ve picked up an Agatha Christie novel, chances are it was one of those, and maybe 450 to Paddington, but probably more likely Murder on the Orient Express and And Then There Were None, which really she like you mentioned, she works so well with archetype.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. No right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Which is such a fascinating thing for a British author to do because I feel like again, she’s working in a time period, late Victorian, just post Victorian era, where people were expected to fit into societal slots kind of better than American hoorah freedom. I get to choose my own my own path and tread it my own way if I want to. the our way of understanding how people work.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): in society. Like you go into the military, you are, you know, you are a vicar if you’re the thirdborn son. If you’re the firstborn son, you might end up being a lord and you have a manor. And that sort of understanding. And if you’re a woman, you’re one of their wives. And that’s really about it. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. And that’s it. Yeah. I mean, and it’s ironic that she really had a good handle on these archetypes in a structure of society that’s was very rigid, a very rigid caste system. And she was one of the ones that was really blowing it out of the water. I mean, in what was it, 1936, she disappeared for 11 days. And like, you know, her husband was of course suspected, and all of these things happened.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
And you know, they found her at a spa, Harrowgate spa, two hundred and fifty miles from where she started, and checked in under the name of her husband’s mistress into this hotel. It I mean, like and then and then she you know, like he shows up, like the police find her. Well, a nurse reports, hey, I think this is Agatha Christie, as she’s walking around the spa.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Such a glorious burn.
Mindy Carlson
With the newspaper under her arm with her picture on it, because she’s like been there for 11 days and nobody’s figured out that she’s Agatha Christie. Because she wasn’t like that well known at that time. She was like an up-and-coming writer, and this really like blew her up because her picture was everywhere, and this was a very famous thing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. It’s like that wonderful double-edged sword of you’re gonna know me now and also screw you, husband, stop cheating on me. I’m the successful one in this relationship.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, he was very he was a World War II or a World War I pilot and he was very like exotic and loved fast cars and was very much a ladies’ man. But like yeah, I mean, but it was like one of those but it was one of those and then three years later after she came back and she’s never talked about the disappearance ever. She like never spoke about it, never did interviews. It’s not in her memoir at all. But then three years later, she divorced him.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you don’t marry that fella, Aggie, come on.
Mindy Carlson
And can you imagine in nineteen thirty-nine, nineteen forty, you like you are divorcing you are a divorced woman? I mean, that is like scandalous. That is there is no there is no system for you. You are now outside of the rigidity of the structure of society, and people don’t know what to do with you, which is why a lot of divorced women were shunned at that point, because they’re like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
We don’t we don’t know. We don’t know what to do with you.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, you don’t belong to a man. Like, what are what are you supposed to be doing here? Like, that’s actually one of the reasons why I loved writing in the nineteen fifties a single my book series is 1950 single working woman in New York City, where it’s like, my god, you’re so wrong because you’re 27 and you’re unmarried, and what the hell are we supposed to do with you? And she’s like, Nothing. I work, leave me alone.
Mindy Carlson
I know my gut. Your eggs are drying up as we speak, you know. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Such a waste of a uterus, you. And but I one of the things that I liked better personally about the Kenneth Branoff version of it is that Poirot is not classist. He he textually in the books, he
Mindy Carlson
Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): He he may not have sympathy for people who are maybe lower on the the economic scale than a lot of like the lords and ladies who hire him to do things, but he doesn’t necessarily assume that lower class people are criminal or up to no good or unworthy of respect. And I think Branagh did that exceptionally well in his version of this movie.
Mindy Carlson
Right. Agreed. Well, and Monsieur Book, who’s his friend, who says you have to investigate this, he actually brings up the fact that you have a you know a citizen of Spain and a black man, a black American on the train. And if you leave and you don’t investigate, those are the two that are likely to be blamed. And there will be no trial.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
There will be no real investigation. They will look at the color of their skin and assume and the accent of their voice and assume that they’re guilty. And that is that is why he decides to investigate in that version. and I think it’s because it’s my bone to pick with this particular version, because they bury the emotional foundation of the story until the second act.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, it Yeah, they do.
Mindy Carlson
Even in the th even they don’t bring it up till midway through the second act, the Daisy Armstrong kidnapping. Whereas in the Albert Finney version, that is the first thing that you learn. You learn about this couple and you learn that their baby was stolen. And it’s based it is based on the Lindbergh kidnapping. This like Agatha Christie based it on this, but instead of going with how did it happen, she went with the aftermath of it. And so
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
So you have that foundation, which is something I really appreciated in the Sidney Lumay version. And it’s something that I sort of had me out to see a little bit in the Kenneth Braun version. Cause all of a sudden he’s like, Everybody here has something to do with the Daisy Armstrong case. And then there’s this like weird paragraph of exposition in there. And that just felt like horky to me. Whereas
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, that’s true. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
In the in the in the Albert Finney version, it does become Chekhov’s gun. You do know that everything that is gonna happen has to do with the Daisy Armstrong kidnapping. Which I didn’t mind because as a reader viewer, I like being in on it. Like I I like knowing that this is the direction it’s gonna go.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, I just unbelievable applause for Aggie for really figuring out the crime that no one would blame you for retribution. You know, you you you look at you know certain things and it’s like if it was not the murder of a child and the Complete collapse of that child’s family and everyone who ever knew or loved them or cared for them. if it was anything less than that, you would want the conclusion of, and they all, you know, get sold out to the Montenegrin police, wherever they are, and and you know, and they all get cuffed and taken away. But, you know, the the the ending of this film, which we are gonna spoil because the book’s been around for
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s like a hundred years, right?
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’s pretty close. so and I think y’all might know if you’re listening to this. So the fact that they have set up the perfect crime with two red herrings in order to blame someone who does not exist is a perfectly plausible thing for for for the Montenegrin police in order to pursue. But Pro obviously figures out what actually happened because he’s Pro and he has to, and that’s just what he does. And so he gives the the train official sort of the option of like, and what one would you like to go with? And of course, the train official, because he doesn’t have a heart made of stone, goes, I’m gonna let these people off the hook. And of course, you’re like, yeah, goddamn right, you’re gonna let these people off the hook. And it it’s such a wonderful way for you to question your own concept of justice, retribution, punishment.
Mindy Carlson
That’s right. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you you have and I feel like a lot of books nowadays, even though you and I are active crime writers, they want us to be very didactic about what is right and wrong. You know, I think we have a lot in the thriller world, which is what I jokingly refer to as my dead husband books, where it’s like, My husband wronged me and now I have to kill him because that is that is the way of things because he wronged me so thoroughly. And I’m like, that’s a that’s a good, you know.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): angle to this of like what did that person do to you in order to make you want to take this wonder this final sort of step and remove them from the face of the planet. oftentimes I will read ones where I’m like, there is no fault divorce for a reason. You can just, you know, kind of do that rather than commit murder. that rarely seems to be an option, but you know, wouldn’t be a good book otherwise. But this but I think that
Mindy Carlson
Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): The ending of the Finny version really captures that despair of him understanding the the gravity of what these people went through, the heartbreak that they’ve experienced, the complete corruption of their lives. And then the the Branagh version, he gets moralistic on them. And I’m just kind of like, excuse you, you don’t understand what this book is supposed to be doing.
Mindy Carlson
Well, I feel like in the Finney version, they do a really good job of making him one of their number because Colonel Armstrong wrote to him and asked him to investigate the crime, but he couldn’t do it because he was he was investigating a different crime or he was traveling somewhere. There was a reason that he could not get involved and couldn’t be there to do it. And they do set that up in the first act of that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Right.
Mindy Carlson
where he he was like, yeah, he’s he sort of says, There’s only one regret I have, and it was this. So they kind they do a really nuanced, subtle job of suddenly like making him a part of this conspiracy plot, making him a player. Right. How could yeah, he feels the guilt
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Right, and how Cassetti got away with it for this long.
Mindy Carlson
That he could have caught Cassetti and brought him to justice and prevented this incredible implosion of all of these 12 people’s lives. And he so so I like that particular version where he’s like, and now I’m step I’m stepping into my role in in justice. Whereas in the Brana version and kind of in the Suchet version a little bit, he does get very moralistic on that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
is like you did a terrible thing and you killed a man and it doesn’t really matter what he did before that. You know, there is no justice in murder. And it’s some very black and white thinking from his part. And I guess that fits with the Poro character a lot. Cause he he is very black and white. He is very right and wrong. But at the same time I feel like Brano’s version could have done a better job of
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
Of again making him that thirteenth juror or making him the judge in this particular kind of like courtroom simile.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, it maybe was not the best text for him to start off with. I feel like something like Death on the Nile, which was the next movie that Branagh did, which I love Peter Yustinov as Poirot as well. He’s so good and he’s excellent in that movie because he’s playing off of David Niven. And if I had gotten 30 maybe movies of Peter Yustinov and David Niven like being a tag team investigators, I would have been absolutely thrilled. But that’s it.
Mindy Carlson
so good. yeah. That would have been amazing.
Emily Edwards (she/her): That’s an aside. but you know, Death on the Nile is a little bit like, my god, I’m amongst all of these repugnant people and I just have to figure out who’s doing it and why. And it turns out that it’s Mia Faro who’s absolutely the horrible. And you’re just kind of like, cool, I get it. And that’s a good way, I think, to introduce people to the concept of Poirot, of just who’s incredibly excellent at figuring out everybody’s secrets and you know, and laying it all bare on the table.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Whereas Murder on the Orient Express is, even in the text like of the book, a little bit more morally ambiguous. And you have to start to realize that Poirot is a person rather than a device. And, you know, I think a lot of Poirot’s one of the reasons why I love Poirot so much, and this is gonna be a little bit of a diatribe for me, you’re all used to it. Poirot is, I think, one of the only characters that embodies.
Mindy Carlson
Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Every single type of sleuth. And so you have he was a Belgian police officer, so you have the police procedural. He is often in tiny little country, you know, hamlets where he’s either vacationing or has been invited. So he is a cozy mystery sleuth, often when he’s in these tiny little hamlets, like Halloween party, which they turned into Death in Venice, which was a great movie, but a really shitty adaptation. And then you also he’s also an outsider.
Mindy Carlson
That’s right. Again, great cinematography. The man has a great eye, beautiful eye, but
Emily Edwards (she/her): Gorgeous movie. Yes. You know, not an adaptation of a really, really good and interesting book. Just a crappy adaptation to screen. he is also a private investigator because he’s frequently hired in order to do the do the job. He’s called up and he’s given a a a fee. And then you also have the fact that he is an amateur sleuth because sometimes he just stumbles on things and all of those things just sort of happen to him. So he’s every single one and he slots into all of the different ways that we think about mystery fiction and who’s going to be solving the crime and and and and making sure justice is served. Is he doing it as a police officer? Is he doing it as a private investigator? Is he doing it as a cozy sleuth? Is he doing it as an amateur or a gentleman sleuth? just for the fun of the game. He he does all of them and he does all of them really, really well. And I think that specifically, you know, for this, he’s in the Finney version, he’s somewhat coincidentally on the train. I think that maybe Branagh blurred the the the wrong lines, if that makes sense.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah, I feel like in the f I mean, I in both versions they are called on to use their superpower. They are reluctant heroes. So they he’s they need a rest. They’re both of them are like, I’m on vacation. I am done with this. I c I had a really rough time of it. I’m not doing this again. And they get called on, called the you know, the hero’s call to action happens and they the entreaty is made.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
So you get this sort of like reluctant professional happening. So which which is another archetype of sleuth where you have the reluctant investigator, somebody who’s pushed into it because of moral morals or you know, they realize they’re the only one that can solve it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. I loved that in the Branaugh version, Monsieur Buc is just kind of like it’s like a seaside puzzle, a beachside puzzle. He kept hearkening back to that other wonderful trope of cozy mystery where it’s like, you’re on vacation. You’re supposed to just be on vacation. It’s just a simple beachside puzzle. And Poirot is like, nah, this is the worst.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah, it’s no big deal.
Emily Edwards (she/her): This is the exact opposite of a beachside puzzle. Not only are we snowed in in the middle of Zagreb, but like this is not simple. This is not just a guy who snuck into the beach house.
Mindy Carlson
Right. This we are the murderer is right here among us and somebody else could die at any moment because we don’t know why Cassetti was stabbed twelve times.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ugh. Yeah. I I mean, I think again, another detail that I think the Branno version I liked in the Branagh version was they got rid of the Greek doctor and they also changed his relationship to the gentleman who was involved in the train in the train company. And they changed him from like an older, austere, very proper man who’s very interested in the legacy and Italian to this.
Mindy Carlson
Yes. Yes. An Italian.
Emily Edwards (she/her): French N’erduel, who’s just like he the introduction of he never judges me for being a terrible person is one of my favorite sort of delineations for Pro. Because I feel like a lot of people think he is just someone who has he, you know, he’s got his little gray cells and he can be very black and white. But this version does acknowledge that, like, if you’re not
Mindy Carlson
yeah. He’s a party boy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): hurting anyone else. Poirot doesn’t care about your sins. And I think that’s a really interesting flip to give a character that makes him a little less automatic, a little less you know, it makes him easier to swallow for modern audiences.
Mindy Carlson
Right. Well it yeah, I mean it allows well it makes it possible for him to look at twelve people who have committed a murder they feel is j a justified revenge and say I am not judging this. Like I have presented you with the solution, like I miss your book, I have presented you with the solution, you know, this is what it is, and I cannot tell you what to do with this information.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
Лак, аби аджонна.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’s it’s a really lovely thing. And I’ve and we have to at some point get to the the the bear in the room for a lot of poor Branagh’s adaptations in that man’s series has been completely obliterated by the worst casting choices, unfortunately, politically known to man.
Mindy Carlson
Ha Yeah. Y yes. It I mean, it was unfortunate. It was unfortunate. Well, which one are you talking about though? Are you talking about all of them or like I mean yeah, I can’t you know, I can’t really watch Army Hammer anymore with like any kind of
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. The worst part my god. It it literally all of them You know the Yeah. Nope. Mm-mm. No, that that was rough. yeah. No. And Russell Brand’s in that one too.
Mindy Carlson
I was like, no. No, what were we doing? he is. It’s you can tell it’s been a while since I’ve watched it. Holy guacamole. Yeah, everybody in that cast is terrible.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, it’s really rough. That one is just like we’re gonna just rub that from our memories of understanding. if we do Death on Nile in the future, it will be the Peter Eustinov version, even though Mio Farrow is the worst actress of all time.
Mindy Carlson
Ha ha She’s yeah, she’s sp you know what? I I’m just gonna I feel like at that time period she was going through it, so I’m gonna give her a lot of grace on that. You wanna talk about terrible people that she was associated with. Hoo boy.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, that’s true. We can’t blame her for her Life. Yeah. Woo. But but the but unfortunately, while you’re watching this particular murder on the Orient Express, you are both thrilled that Johnny Depp gets murdered really early on in the movie, and also annoyed how good he is in this role. He’s so flippant good. It’s it’s perfect casting. Yeah. Aside from, you know, the everything.
Mindy Carlson
He’s really good. Well, I mean, you know, like actors actors who are good at acting, you know, it’s I think it’s because they don’t know who they really are.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ooh. Elaborate.
Mindy Carlson
They’re I feel I feel like there’s nothing there’s nothing there. So they latch on to another personality.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ooh, I love that idea. That’s really interesting. Because, I mean, Kenneth Branagh is considered obviously one of the greatest actors of that generation. And
Mindy Carlson
Hundred percent. I mean, all you have to do is watch Much Ado About Nothing to understand how great he is as an actor and a director. The scene in the hedge maze where he’s got the chair and he keeps trying to set it up and he’s overhearing Emma Thompson and Hero talking about things and he’s he’s keeps moving it to overhear things. And then at the end where he finally gets the chair out correctly and sits in it and it collapses.
Emily Edwards (she/her): The sexiest movie ever made. Yes. It’s genius. And and one of the we’re gonna just gonna go on a tangent here for a second. Because one of the things that he did so well in that movie is he also gives you, as the viewer, the experience of she could run off with Denzel Washington no problem. And it would be and it would be fine if she did. It would be a totally different play, but you you know she’s got
Mindy Carlson
Із дженіс. Tangent. Mm-hmm. Easily. Hm?
Emily Edwards (she/her): options and that’s one of the greatest things about his direction with that where you’re just like Emma Thompson has two choices and Kenneth Brenaugh’s the worst one in that movie.
Mindy Carlson
She does. Yep, the I feel like he is an excellent director. I feel like he really gives the actors a chance to do what they want. And like Michael Keaton in Much Ado About Nothing. Michael Keaton was like, I don’t really do Shakespeare. I don’t the sheriff is a terrible part. Like, I don’t really know what to do with him. And Kenneth was like, do whatever you want. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
like I want you to really explore the character. Sit down and think about it. And if it I’m sure it’s gonna work. If it doesn’t work, we’ll come up with something else. But like don’t sell yourself short on your ability to be able to make this character sing. And it is he steals the show. He steals every scene that he’s in, like the whole like spit in the hand and like wipe your hair and like and then like riding through doing like the Monty Python horse and coconut thing. Like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Absolutely. It’s so disgusting. Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson
with his little minion behind him. I mean, that is freaking hilarious. And he and Kenneth was like, All right, let’s go with that. And he did the same thing to Anthony Hopkins in Thor. ’cause Kenneth Branaugh also directed Thor.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It really is. Yeah, we’re gonna run with this. Mm-hmm. Which you’re like that came out of like absolutely nowhere and it’s really good.
Mindy Carlson
Like, yeah, like what it is really good. It’s like, what the hell? So but he but Anthony Hopkins was also like, you know, struggling a little bit with the scene where he takes away Thor’s power. And he says, he’s like, I don’t know, the lines aren’t working for me. You know, I’m not you know, I’m not really sure. And he goes, he goes, You’re a you’ve you’re a father and you have been disappointed.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
In your children, in your agent, in life. You know, you’ve had major disappointments. You know, Anthony Hopkins is famously a recovering alcoholic and has been for like 30, 35 years now. He’s like, you know what it’s like to be at your lowest, and you know what you wish somebody had done for you. Your son is at his lowest point and needs to be kicked. So do that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
Up with something and do that. And he did it. And that was what was in the movie. Those improvised lines of like, you know, you know, you are this kind of disappointment, and you’re arrogant, and you’re like, and so I think he does a really good job of knowing who his actors are, knowing what their strengths are, and letting them go with that, and then you know, packaging it all up in this really gorgeous bow.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. No, what I would even say is that made me remember a conversation I was having yesterday with my husband after I watched the Branow version of this. And I was so impressed by the fact that the cast includes just Judy Dench, Willem Dafoe, Penelope Cruz, just some of like just some really phenomenal, outstanding, established.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. yeah. Yeah, Olivia Coleman.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Olivia Coleman, who’s there for like two and a half minutes speaking German, and she’s absolutely dynamite, but
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. I mean, I speak German. That is flawless. Like and then let’s see, I wrote down anybody else. Leslie Odom Junior, who’s like in the middle of Hamilton at the time. He’s Dr. Arbuthnot. I was like, my God, that’s Leslie Odom Jr.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’s flawless German, but I would But I was gonna say one of the things that he does the best is that the majority of the show, I would say, is on the shoulders of the three youngest actors. So you have Leslie Odom Jr., you have Josh Gadd, and you have Daisy Ridley, who are actually like the characters that he’s the most invested in. And he really sets them up for phenomenal, shining performances.
Mindy Carlson
Mm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Daisy Daisy Ridley is great in this movie. Josh Gadd is great in this movie. Leslie Odam Jr. is great in this movie. Sure, Willem Dafoe’s back there playing a fake racist Austrian, but like, you know, but that’s like two and like we said, like two and a half minutes on screen. He’s got eight lines in the entire thing. And but it’s
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. yeah. Mm-hmm. That’s yeah. Again, you’re doing this. You like how much are they paying you for this? You’ve got eight lines. That can’t be a t and you’ve got to be there for the whole shoot.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. I know, but like to for me, the the director the the director concept of being like, you know, we have these established stars who have been nominated for multiple Oscars, won multiple Oscars. They’re some of the most celebrated actors of their generations, regardless of what generation they are. And we’re going to set it up so they’re all there to support these three young actors who could be the future of Hollywood. And I think certainly Josh Gadd has made his his his, you know.
Mindy Carlson
But Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): presence known better than possibly the other two. But like that is such an interesting directorial position for Brannoff to take. And I think it was it’s to the movie’s benefit that he lets that happen.
Mindy Carlson
Right. A hundred percent. Hundred percent. And and the chemistry between Daisy Ridley and Leslie Odom Jr. is fantastic. They don’t have that many scenes together, but you understand that they are deeply in love and they have been waiting a long time to be able to finally come together and have a life together. And that this the Daisy Armstrong kidnapping and murder has
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson
has completely blocked that this whole time and they are on the cusp of finally having happiness. And I think that they do such a great job of that throughout the entire movie. And even though they’re like not together in that many scenes, but there are little glances, there are like quickly look aways, they’re they’re just very subtle background things that they are
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm. Mm.
Mindy Carlson
choices that they’re making as the actors embodying those characters. And you don’t really get to they don’t really out their relationship until the end, unlike the Albert Finney version where Albert Finney, which I think that Sidney Lumet did a Lumet did a wonderful job of of this directoral decision where he has Poirot be really aggressive with Miss Debanon. Like like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Like the Right. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
taking her passport and smacking it against his hand and and raising his voice, you know, and having her in a separate carriage where and then you have Sean Connery as her love interest, who is like, I’m not gonna stand like you’re yeah, burst in and and it’s kinda like that’s the moment that their relationship is outed, kind of in the middle. But and I but I really loved in this version, you don’t need Poirot to out.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Blustering in.
Mindy Carlson
their relationship. You understand that Poirot already knows and he doesn’t need the confirmation because everything they’re doing in the background is confirmation.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah, like the none of the touching is intimate. I love when they’re on the boat and he’s standing a little bit too far away for it to be a loving embrace and he touches her elbow. And you’re just like, my god, that is so subtle and gorgeous. And I do appreciate the fact that it’s like you need Poirot to see subtlety as opposed to see something that everybody can see. and
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Again, one thing that they changed in both of these versions from the book is that the Michelle Pfeiffer character and also Lauren Bacall character, what in the book, whenever she talks about someone who has given her advice or told her to do something, she says my daughter. And then in both of the movies, she says my husband. And I thought that was a really, really interesting choice to make.
Mindy Carlson
that’s right. That’s right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): For the essentially the mastermind behind this perfect crime is she is in the book, she’s very dedicated to telling people that she has a very, very, very close relationship with her daughter or daughters. And in the movies, they try to paint her more as like, well, Michelle Pfeiffer’s more of like the happy-go-lucky slut, and Lauren Bacall is just kind of like the brassy American because Americans are so un Yeah, are so uncouth. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
gum chewing. Yeah. Gum cracking. It’s yeah, it is an interesting decision. And I feel like they make Michelle Pfeiffer’s character very glamorous. Like she’s she whereas Lauren McCall is like her glamour is sort of toned down a little bit because she’s not supposed to be known as a movie star. Like she’s y right. Like she’s not supposed yes, she’s very edgy. That’s I mean, that was like really like woo, you’re wear you’re letting her wear pants in nineteen
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Right, right. She wears pants. Like it’s so cool. Uh-huh.
Mindy Carlson
What thirty something? my god. But like but Michelle Pfeiffer, there’s not a moment in there where she’s not screaming movie star. Her entire demeanor, screaming movie star. Which I mean is also an interesting acting choice to make where it’s like once you’re a movie star, you’re always a movie star. You like do this is just how you act. Whereas Lauren Bacall I think is embodying a different character.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
And proving she’s a movie star in a different way.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. No, the the so talk about wonderful mirror casting because I feel like a lot of the castings they either tried to break type or or do something slightly different. Like the German maid in the the original or the the seventies version is she’s not terribly glamorous, but Olivia Coleman is just always gorgeous and there’s nothing you can do about the fact that Olivia Coleman is beautiful.
Mindy Carlson
Right, they straightened her hair to make her not as gorgeous, which I was like, try try harder.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. And you’re just like, man, Olivia Coleman, she’s just, she is just a goddess. I love her so much. And but like the mirror casting between Bacall and Pfeiffer is like, yeah, no, Michelle Pfeiffer is absolutely our Lauren Bacall. Like, I totally get how you were like, I need someone who walks into the room. And one of the things that I noticed is that both Lauren Bacall and Vanessa Redgrave were very tall and
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Less like naturally very and so was Ingrid Bergman. They were all very, very tall women, which I wonder if that was purposeful to sort of make Poirot look more sort of like, you know, sickly and small and and like more unassuming. I I I don’t know.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. It could it could be because Albert Finney is quite tall. Al Albert Finney is like six feet or more. So I think you would need a cast of tall women to go against him. And speaking of Ingrid Bergman, I I sometimes forget that like Isabella Rossellini is her daughter. But I have and I and it’s kinda like I’ve always sort of been like, I guess she takes more after her dad than her mother’s side. my god, in the role that she was in in Conclave.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. I know.
Mindy Carlson
Like and this role of that Angrid Bergman is in. Like they are twins. I she has never looked more like her mother. Like it it is why I was like, no, that is a hundred percent Bergman jeans happening right there. That is insane.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The apple did not fall. The apple was cloned and cut in or cut in half. Like they’re the exact same face.
Mindy Carlson
It is it is why sounds like okay and Ingrid Bergman won best supporting actress for this, the BAFTA and the Oscar.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Just incredible I mean, for again, a rather thankless role after, you know, being known for Casa. Yeah, this really off-putting religious zealot who, you know, is speaking in just horrifically racist, even for the times, like way of thinking about missionary work and things like that. It was like, you know, as a modern audience, you’re hearing her say these things, and just like, that’s pretty repugnant, that’s pretty gross.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. The religious zealot. Pretty terrible. Well, welcome to missionary work, I guess. But but it’s but it but I and I really loved Penelope Cruz being casted, you know, at and if you watch the Amazon version, it still says, you know, what was it Iran Elena Olafson instead of her her other name. Yeah, her other s extremely Spanish name. I was like, interesting. But but she’s like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Extremely Spanish name. I did notice that.
Mindy Carlson
And again, you want to talk about somebody who is gorgeous and glamorous and had that sort of like toned down to this very quiet beauty and and tortured sort of sense, you know, soul of I am responsible for this. I am the reason all of this happened. And if I had been, you know, awake, if I had been better, if I had been more.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
None of this would have happened. you can just see all of this guilt just weighing her down. And I and it’s not an ostentatious choice. She’s not doing anything really flagrant or like, you know, like lashing at herself or or anything like that. It’s this very quiet. I I’m like, wow, Penelope Cruz, you are look I mean, that is a dynamite acting choice.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah, I agree. And it it is again one of the characters because a lot of them are sort of the characters in the novel, the book, the in the movies, they’re they’re somewhat one step removed from the actual crime. And she is the person who is probably the most I was the last line of defense before this little girl got taken and murdered. And so, you know, you can all
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Have feelings about your sister being the victim of a crime or or or but she was the person who was supposed to stop it. She’s the nurse, she was sleeping in the nursery, she was supposed to be the person who protected this little girl. And I think to have that character in both adaptations be the person who is the most shattered is a really, really you know, but also the sister. In in the Branagh version, it’s
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): God, her name just went right out my head. what’s her name? She’s she’s Lucy Boynton. She she plays Shattered exceptionally well in that that sort of delicate. She’s also in a really good Christie adaptation that was directed by Hugh Laurie. Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, where she’s allowed to be full glamour puss, and she’s absolutely phenomenal in that adaptation. It’s also on Amazon. but you know.
Mindy Carlson
hang on. Lucy Boyton. Yeah, she’s gorgeous.
Emily Edwards (she/her): But she’s shattered and inactive and passive in this. And I love the fact that the nurse, the Penelope Cruz slash Ingrid Birdwin character, is shattered but active in it. And and Christy is herself a little bit misogynist in most of her books, in that she really loves being like, You’re the improper woman and you’re the proper woman. She really
Mindy Carlson
Yes.
Emily Edwards (she/her): l had feelings about how girls w and women were supposed to act.
Mindy Carlson
Well, you know, having your having your husband cheat on ya will do that.
Emily Edwards (she/her): It’ll do it to you. But I really love the fact that in this she she had all of them, you know, in a in a way that’s she usually does not give women a whole lot of agency in order to have that sort of confidence or or I don’t know how to describe it in words that I’m just like you can’t say me.
Mindy Carlson
No, I mean, yeah, they had agency and they had, you know, righteousness on their side. I mean, and Linda Arden planned the whole thing. You know, the the grandmother planned everything in concert with her other daughter. And and what that’s one of the things I love so much about Sydney Lumay’s version is that you get this curtain call at the end where they pour champagne.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
And like Poro has made his decision as far as like, you know, I un I know what you did, I unraveled the puzzle and you know, Signor Bianchi and and the doctor, Constantine, can like figure out what they wanna do with it. But I’ve
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly.
Mindy Carlson
job and I will not judge you. And so they kind of like leave and then you get this lovely scene where they’re like clinking champagne glasses with each other like one at a time where you have Lauren Bacall and who played her daughter in that one? I cannot remember. Maybe some somebody somebody fabulous. so they’re side by side and yes, yes, Jaclyn Bassett.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. yeah. Jacqueline Bassett.
Mindy Carlson
And you have them like clink, clink, and then move on. And so it’s framed between their two faces. So you get like the cheap sort of quarter profile of their faces framing each other murderer slash conspirator as they go by and clink these, you know, clink their champagne glasses. And I that had a wonderful sense of closure.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm.
Mindy Carlson
To me, like that really wrapped it all up where Kenneth whereas Kenneth Brana’s curtain call is the recreation of the Da Vinci’s The Last Supper. That’s that’s his curtain call where you have all of them in a row and him in front of them expounding upon what they have done. And so I there’s just it’s I don’t know, I guess maybe it’s because there’s just a look of relief.
Emily Edwards (she/her): The last supper, yeah. Mm.
Mindy Carlson
and and joy on their faces that had been missing through the entire rest of the movie. The whole movie they’re tense and sad or or very reserved. And now there’s just this lightness about them that I particularly enjoyed. And it’s only because you know that Cassetti slash Ratchet deserved it. You know, so whereas you don’t get that in Kenneth Branow’s version.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it at the end of Branoz, he gives Linda Arden an opportunity to commit violence against him. And she picks up and he’s, you know, he slams a gun down on the table and was like, You’re gonna have to stop me from telling the police the truth. And she picks up the gun because American, and you know, you really do think that she might take a pot shot at him, because again, American.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm.
Emily Edwards (she/her): And you’re thinking to yourself, like, you know, she’s a desperate mother and grandmother. She has planned this for years. She has figured out, probably to great expense to her, because she’s paying, probably paying for everybody’s tickets and everybody’s traveled across the globe. She has really truly put herself into this for this life-shattering thing. And then she holds the gun to herself and clicks, and it’s not loaded. And that’s when sort of Poirot has this moment of.
Mindy Carlson
Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): if you’re willing to you know, not have the rest of your life for having committed this crime and you’re willing to essentially go to the gallows for this, we actually won’t send you there. And that’s when he has the realization that I’m not going to tell the truth, and we’re all going to tell everybody that this mysterious man committed the murder. And and I think that’s such a deeply conservative sort of.
Mindy Carlson
Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): you know, there is no celebration. They are left at the end to just sort of be like, Well, he told us we were wrong and maybe we were wrong, but at least we finished it. Whereas I also appreciate the champagne and you know, at the end of you know how at funerals, if you’re Irish or Italian, you usually end up devolving into telling stories and like laughing about everything at the at the end of it. And I feel like that’s
Mindy Carlson
Yes, one hundred percent.
Emily Edwards (she/her): the sort of vibe that the Finney version has at the end, which is, you know, we’re gonna have a more of a celebration of the life of our loved ones who passed. Whereas at the end of the Branagh version, it is very much like, and now we have to live with the sin that we’ve committed. And that is such a very deeply sort of conservative ending to to it.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like they have to remain shattered. There’s no rebuilding of their lives. There’s no reinvention of of who you I don’t know, reinvention’s not right word, but but there’s no like they’re not gonna get yeah, there’s no after. I mean, in the Lume version, it’s like, you know, we get to go on and live our lives and and
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Next chapter. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
be free and you know Miss Debon and Miss and Dr. Arvutnot are gonna be able to like celebrate together and live together. And but in the Brana version it’s like nothing is repaired.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. And it’s it’s a real bummer. You know, I it’s you know, you assume that, you know, Josh Gadd’s character might go back to the city and and follow in his father’s footsteps or be a better lawyer or be a better prosecutor and things like that, but you’re n you’re really not given a whole lot of promise. And you know, I don’t need movies or books, especially to have a happy ending, but I do think that that’s not necessarily true to the book.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. Right.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Which is when, you know, Poirot also says, like, you know, he almost offers it in sort of a joviality of just like, now that I’ve unraveled and I’ve proven to you that, you know, like I am still the best detective. He’s just like, no, you’re right. I think it makes a lot more sense that it’s just someone got on the train station while we were taking air, stabbed the guy, and runoffed. And, you know, he has almost because he wasn’t a nice guy.
Mindy Carlson
‘Cause he wasn’t a nice guy. He had it come in from many different corners.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Exactly. Don’t don’t wrong the the guys who live in Milan. Just don’t do that. Don’t play with fire, fellas.
Mindy Carlson
Right. Don’t wrong the guy’s I mean, but again, I that’s one of the things the Lume version did like set up for him was to make him potentially a part of this, ’cause he was the detective that couldn’t help. That that Colonel Armstrong had contacted him and begged him for help, but he couldn’t do it. And now he’s finally able to help. Whereas in
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
The Brana version, they don’t really convey that to, I don’t know, to they it’s not overt. I mean, a lot of Brana stuff, it’s very subtle. There’s very some very covert things happening that you kind of have to just pick up as you go along, which he usually does pretty, pretty magnificently. But the whole, you know, what is Parot’s responsibility to this case is somewhat lacking or one dimensional.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, which he usually does pretty well. Yeah. And and I would also say Brenna did one really weird thing that I don’t understand why you would do in a modern Poirot adaptation, in that he made him explicitly heterosexual. And I was like, I’m sorry, Hercule Poirot is mourning a woman that he used to date. Like, no, that is incorrect. I refuse to believe it.
Mindy Carlson
As opposed to being three dimensional. Yeah, he was he’s by at best.
Emily Edwards (she/her): He’s bi at best. And he’s like, yes, I once had a love. And I’m like, Great, now we’re going to canonically point out the fact that Hercule Poirot is gay. No, he is playing to he’s praying to a picture of Katarine, the woman who he no longer has a relationship. We presume he’s dead. And I she’s dead. And I’m just like, Branna, really? That’s the decision you went with?
Mindy Carlson
I mean, I always thought that Poirot was ace, you know, that he was just sort of, you know, he was asexual. He’s you know, women are too messy for like men are also complicated. Like that’s the level of mess he’s not gonna invite into his life.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Yeah. I used to work for a gentleman who was a a wine critic. And I was the only straight person who worked there. And so I was once having a conversation with this other woman who worked there, and she was just like, you know, we often got the question that he might have been queer, but we think he’s just one of those special fancy men. And I was like, Yeah, that’s just you know how there’s just guys of a certain age who are just fancy, and you’re like, yeah, no, like I get that. The most generous like reading of Poirot. And for some reason, yes, exactly. And it’s just like, no, he knows what fork to use. Like it’s he’s just a exactly. He was just a fancy fella. And I just could not believe that in the year of 2017, when this movie came out, he went out of his way to make Poirot a
Mindy Carlson
Back the nineties we called it metrosexual. He just paid attention. His mother taught him well. To be like, no, well, he also must have read the interview that Agatha Christie had given about Albert Finney’s version and the one criticism that she had was that his mustache was too small. And then he doubled down on that mustache and like, you know.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. That was some incredibly engineered facial hair. Like I it was just very impressive.
Mindy Carlson
That was extremely I was like, my God, like he killed shows up on TV and I was like, whoa. Like that is some impressive and you find out later in other movies kind of like why they they’ve given him a reason for having such a grandiose mustache, which I felt cheapened. The reason kind of cheapened it rather than it just being like because I will have a beautiful wax mustache and that’s just my style. Yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, I don’t it it That just is who he is.
Mindy Carlson
So yeah, I was like, I liked it better just being like, that’s my fashion, this is my look, this is what I do, rather than it being like he’s, you know, hiding something about his face.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Wamp. Yeah. Yeah. I I really do wonder if he’s going to do another one because I’ve now seen all f no lie and he also better get a better casting director because I feel like
Mindy Carlson
You better get a better script writer. somebody who reads the gossip sections.
Emily Edwards (she/her): my god, just log into TMZ for half an hour. Do a quick Google search. Like my God. Because
Mindy Carlson
Yeah. For sure. I would I think if he does another one, the three three little pigs. That might be interesting.
Emily Edwards (she/her): yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. Or even just something like murder murder of Roger Aykroyd, which is just like such a wonderful twist at the end where, you know, he’s not the narrator, you’re not really in Poirot’s head, you’re not following him, you’re following someone else. is that would be just like Yeah, yeah. And I think having a condensed cast of people might really benefit.
Mindy Carlson
Yes. It’s a very Watson kind of character that you’re following.
Emily Edwards (she/her): You know, having it be closer and having it be someone who’s in awe. Did you ever see the John Malkovich ABC murders? Yeah. That was an interesting take on Poirot. I’m not Malkovich was fine because he’s John Malkovich and he’s a great actor. But that was a really interesting decision that I know a lot of people didn’t like that she made him a former priest.
Mindy Carlson
Agreed. Yes, yes. I mean that that was the least of my concerns with that movie. I mean the ABC murders in general as a book I found I feel like as the authorship of it that she had a she had a trope that she was go or she had an idea that she was gonna use that you know people would be you know killed in alphabetical order and like
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Mindy Carlson
And she was like, by God, I’m gonna shoehorn this in to some like I’m gonna pound this square peg into that round hole if it kills me. So I f is the whole thing to be felt a little forced and not as elegant as some of her other mysteries, where things very like flowed together. So I’m wondering if there was like she missed an edit or like there was a time crunch or something happened.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, I’m gonna make it work. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
But that’s never been like my real like favorite of her mystery stories. I mean, I really love the mysterious affair at the styles. That’s like such a good book. And the Body in the Library, that was one of the first ones I ever read. I mean, that’s fantastic. But yeah, I sort of I feel like Kenadrana, given his love as of cinematography and spectacle.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
I feel like he’s probably gonna look for something that’s gonna take him to a fantastic location. Like, you know, the Orient Express, just sort of like the beauty is everywhere. The death on the Nile, the beauty is everywhere. Murder in Venice, my God, it’s like a Venetian haunted house with like the masks and I mean the it it’s just it it just lends itself to gorgeous spectacle. And so I’m kind of wondering.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Carlson
I I would wanna like flip through my collection, my ample collection of Agatha Christie, to sort of see what other ones have that kind of a glorious potential for cinematography. I mean, Roger Aykroyd probably could do it. Was he was is is the murder on the links is that Poirot too? I think.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yes, exactly. For that opulence, yeah. No. Yeah, it’s true. it is. Yeah. No, that one would be fun. Go to Scotland and film on like one of those beautiful Scottish golf courses that are all over. Yeah. Ooh.
Mindy Carlson
Yeah, that could be interesting. On the moors where the wind is blowing and that kind of stuff. I mean, Kenneth Brana loves him a long cloak that is blowing in the wind.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Ooh, ooh. I really, you know, I feel like I I have loved I have liked this series and not been as negative about it as I’ve seen other people be. I’m I’m excited. I hope he does get another one, though I’m not sure they’re making enough money at the box office in order to, you know, warrant it now that, you know, studios are so weird.
Mindy Carlson
Mm-hmm. I mean that the set sets and costumes cost some money. I mean there’s not a ton of special effects that you need, but like that stuff is all cost and money.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Yeah, I’ll say. No. Oof. I don’t know that fight scene with Josh Gadd on the bridge where they’re like, my god. I could have done without that. That was a little dumb, but
Mindy Carlson
that was good. I mean, a little gratuitous, but but excellent, excellent for the action and for ramping up the tension of the plot where he’s like making a run for it.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Very true. I can’t thank you enough for tackling these two movies and this particular text, which is just so beloved and just, you know, it again, the Albert Finney Murder on the Orient Express is so it’s so interesting. It’s so well acted, it’s so well directed. I, you know, it it is one of the, you know, classics for a reason. And if you are a fan of mystery fiction and mystery film and have not tackled it,
Mindy Carlson
yeah.
Emily Edwards (she/her): please do so because even though Albert Finney’s breathing’s a little heavy sometimes, he was under a he was in constraining clothes, he’s in tiny quarters. You can’t blame him too much with that greasy mustache.
Mindy Carlson
He was tired, he was tired.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Mandy, how can everybody keep in touch with you and your work?
Mindy Carlson
I have a blog, Mindy Carlson dot com where I post things monthly. I’m on Facebook, Mindy Carlson Author, and I’m all over Instagram at Mindy Carlson Author.
Emily Edwards (she/her): Awesome. And where can everybody find find your award-nominated novel?
Mindy Carlson
My award name Her Dying Day is you can get it on Amazon or wherever excellent books are sold, unlike Tony Wirt’s mediocre books. Although I have read his stuff and I think he undersells his work terribly. Yeah. It was I mean it’s it is tense. But yeah, so her dime day, a humorous mystery, actually based on the disappearance of Agatha Christie, but in a modern sense, and kind of like what if she never came back sort of thing. So yeah, so that’s where you can find me. But yeah, and but please do find me. I I post
Emily Edwards (she/her): my god, just stay away scared the bejesus out of me. Like it was it is tense. Awesome. Very cool.
Mindy Carlson
A lot you will see a lot of cups of coffee on my Instagram page.
Emily Edwards (she/her): We’re writing, it’s what’s required.
Mindy Carlson
It is. It is.
Leave a Reply