Pull the TV dinner out of the oven. Throw some butter on those peas. It’s time again for your annual tryptophan coma. And another annual tradition.
Yes, it is time again for your annual viewing of one of the two best Thanksgiving episodes that ever graced the small screen. Finish this phrase: “As God is my witness, I thought…” You don’t know how it ends? Then watch and enjoy our traditional viewing of the greatest Thanksgiving episode of TV ever (note: no actual turkeys were harmed in the making of the show):
(YouTube versions change a lot, so feel free to look around for a better version, unless it’s already carried by one of your streaming providers)
But be prepared for next year, which will be the fortieth anniversary of the airing of this episode!
And in between your seconds and thirds on tofurkey, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, bean casserole, pea casserole–and don’t forget the gravy–then check out other Thanksgiving blasts from the past here.
Many have asked: Why make another Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express? You could just as easily ask: Why adapt another Shakespeare play? Or Why make another Sherlock Holmes series? When your story is great, and becomes as classic as Agatha Christie’s famous, timeless 1934 novel, it’s sort of the point of cinema, isn’t it? From an actor standpoint, being in one of the film versions of Murder on the Orient Express, and portraying such iconic roles, is something like being cast as King Lear. And who better than Kenneth Branagh to inject his own vision of the story into a new snapshot of acting greats for a new era of audience members? Of Branagh’s twenty directorial pursuits, you must go back to the early era of Dead Again and Peter’s Friends to find Branagh not serving as puppetmaster of someone else’s well-known world, whether it’s Shakespeare in Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet (and the list goes on), or adaptations of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Marvel Comics’ Thor, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Branagh is the king of directing adaptations and remakes. Add Murder on the Orient Express to that list, a faithful adaptation of the book, stylishly filmed with lavish, sweeping sets and landscapes courtesy of cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, Branagh’s choice cameraman on four of his past films.
The year’s casting award goes to Lucy Bevan for bring filmgoers back to the age of the all-star cast, where you’d look to 1970s disaster movies (Airport ’76, Towering Inferno, Earthquake) or the odd comedy (think It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World) for a pantheon of stars like that found in Orient Express. Branagh as Hercule Poirot sports that classic era moustache with confidence (Christie herself called Poirot’s moustache “magnificent” and “immense”) and he adds his own quirks and humor to Christie’s legendary greatest detective, providing a new twist on the Holmes/Monk/House, M.D. frustrated genius detective archetype. So many of the cast members appear every bit like Golden Age film stars here, including Branagh, Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Josh Gad, Daisy Ridley, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Penélope Cruz, Derek Jacobi, and Leslie Odom, Jr., with a particularly engaging performance by Tom Bateman as Poirot’s friend Bouc, in what will no doubt be seen as a great breakout role for the actor.
The film will be best for those unfamiliar with the story. A famous detective receives a message requiring him to squeeze onto a full train at the last minute with a little more than a dozen passengers aboard. When one passenger who fears for his life and requests assistance from the detective winds up dead in a brutal, bloody murder, the whodunit begins. Once a snowy avalanche blocks the path of the train, the game is afoot as the delay provides enough time for Detective Poirot to begin interviewing the passengers. The mystery is laid out with several clues, including just enough to allow the viewer to figure out who killed the victim if he/she is paying close attention. And Branagh stages the investigation like a game of Clue/Cluedo–including overhead angles that at times make the viewer feel like Murder on the Orient Express is indeed a virtual reality version of the board game. We know the murder weapons and the location, but who is responsible for the death and why?
So long as you have a compelling story to tell, sometimes having all the right people on the big screen is enough of a reason to sit through a movie. But Agathie Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express is like watching a play by Shakespeare. You already know the story is excellent, and the challenge is how creatively the latest director will manipulate the strings and how deftly the actors will portray the characters.
The latest adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express has all the right components for a movie-lover’s two hours of bliss. How will Kenneth Branagh orchestrate his next opus? Like the magnificent Henry V or Much Ado About Nothing? We can hope. How will this room full of master thespians of the British and American schools play off each other? Aren’t you inkling to find out?
This latest trailer for the film (see the first here if you missed it) expands the reach of the first, giving us a good look at Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, and Branagh directing Branagh as Inspector Poirot. Other stars include Derek Jacobi, Judi Dench, Leslie Odom, Jr., Willem Dafoe, Penélope Cruz, Josh Gad, and Olivia Colman. And don’t forget, publicity for the film has indicated that the clues of the crime are everywhere, including in posters and the trailers for the film.
Here is the second trailer for Murder on the Orient Express:
This one looks like it could be the next holiday classic.
Although he’s had theatrical roles in 2013’s The Fifth Estate, 2014’s A Walk Among the Tombstones, 2016’s Colossal, and this year’s Beauty and the Beast remake, Dan Stevens is better known for his British TV roles like Matthew Crawley throughout the run of Downton Abbey. But the genre world really took notice of Stevens this year when he headlined a new X-Men TV series, playing David Haller, a crazed wielder of superpowers on FX’s new series Legion. His next role takes him back to jolly old England and a character that can’t possibly be more classic and British: Charles Dickens himself.
Although the last time we saw someone play the part of Charles Dickens in a major film it was Gonzo in The Muppet Christmas Carol, Stevens’ off-kilter, frenetic kinetic sense, and quizzical expressions make for an intriguing take on Dickens in the first preview for The Man Who Invented Christmas. Stevens looks like he’s channeling Gene Wilder from Young Frankenstein in one scene from the movie’s first trailer.
And we get to see Academy Award-winning actor and Shakespearean great Christopher Plummer (Twelve Monkeys, Up, Wolf, Dragnet, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Somewhere in Time, Return of the Pink Panther, The Sound of Music) join the likes of Alastair Sim, Albert Finney, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, and Bill Murray as Ebenezer Scrooge. This take on Scrooge focuses on Dickens writing the novel A Christmas Carol and getting a spell of writer’s block. And speaking of Finney, the view of the film in the preview looks like a mash-up of style from the comedies Tom Jones and Shakespeare in Love.
Here’s a fun preview for The Man Who Invented Christmas:
