And wouldn’t you just know it? The first of those three new films just happens to be “Murder on the Orient Express,” one of Agatha Christie’s best-known mysteries featuring the fastidious little Belgian detective named Hercule Poirot who has been played for years by David Suchet.

Well, coincidences and a general absence of factual information aside, “David Suchet on the Orient Express” is entertaining largely because Suchet is our tour guide.After he arrives in Calais, France, through the Chunnel, he doesn’t have to worry about mistaking the Orient Express for mere mortal means of transit: The train is massively tall, a quarter of a mile long with three restaurants, a cocktail car and 12 passenger carriages, all exquisitely turned out and restored to their 1920s grandeur.

Back in 1874, another smart Belgian, Georges Nagelmackers, founded the Compagnie Internationale de Wagons-Lits, later to be the parent company of the first Orient Express, as well as other luxury trains that ran throughout Europe. The Orient Express began by linking Paris with Istanbul and eventually ran all the way from Calais to Turkey until 1977, when the Istanbul terminus was, well, terminated.

The charm of the rather thin film owes almost entirely to Suchet’s near giddiness about traveling in such high style, especially in exquisitely appointed rail cars (such as the Lalique car, adorned with bacchanalian scenes rendered in that fine glass designed by Lalique himself).

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About: See Authors Posts (427) on Jul 7th, 2010 and filed under Entertainment . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 . You can leave a response or trackback to this entry