Murder on the Orient Express (Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

MASSIVE SPOILER

Finally dragged this carcass out for a viewing and it was far better than I expected, Citizen Damn Kane compared to Branagh's risible Belfast. It's difficult to get too angry at a typically dopey Agatha Christie property as long as the pace keeps up. This one takes a while to get cooking. But soon you're blinded by the impressive star wattage which carries the film all the way to its gross justifiable homicide conclusion. Harmless but I won't remember it tomorrow.

Speaking of remembering, though, something odd happened while watching this. At about the halfway mark, I figured out the ending and not because I was paying close attention (I wasn't). I had a suspicion that I saw the ending somewhere else. And when it hit me, I guffawed. It wasn't Sidney Lumet's 1974 version which I saw as a kid and recall nothing about. It was Mad's parody of same, Muddle on the Orient Express, from the October 1975 issue, no. 178. I found a copy of the issue and there it was on page 47 (see below). No clue what Sidney Poitier is doing there. He's not in Lumet's film and he's referring to The Bedford Incident, a 1965 film directed by James B. Harris whose next film was 1973's Some Call It Loving which some adjudge the greatest film ever made. Decent flick. But was it so ubiquitous that it would signify in a juvenile humor comic a decade later? 

Grade: B