Cinema Essentials

This sequel to 1973's The Three Musketeers picks up the story after a brief recap of the events of the first film. The story starts with the Musketeers joining the fighting at La Rochelle, as the King's army battles Protestant rebels. The Musketeers are sent to rescue their old foe Rochefort (Christopher Lee), who is working as a spy for the King's forces and has been captured by the rebels. After his release, Rochefort rewards the Musketeers' efforts by kidnapping Constance (Raquel Welch), with the assistance of Milady de Winter (Faye Dunaway). Constance's lover, d'Artagnan (Michael York), initially finds compensations in the attentions of Milady and her obliging maid Kitty (Nicole Calfan). But he soon discovers that Milady is an agent of Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) and that his seduction and the kidnapping of Constance are part of Milady's revenge plot against him. The other Musketeers, Athos (Oliver Reed), Porthos (Frank Finlay) and Aramis (

In the early 1930s, an assorted group of wealthy passengers are travelling west from Istanbul to Paris on the luxury train the Orient Express. A late addition to the passengers is the world-renowned detective Hercule Poirot (Albert Finney). Poirot is accompanied by his friend Bianchi (Martin Balsam), a director of Wagon Lits, the company that runs the Orient Express train. As the train travels through Yugoslavia it runs into heavy snow, and is eventually halted completely by a snow drift. More dramatically, at the same time a shocking murder takes place, of a mysterious American “businessman”, Mr Ratchett (Richard Widmark), who previously told Poirot that he had made enemies and was in fear for his life. With the train halted by the snow, Bianchi asks Poirot to investigate the murder before the local police arrive. Poirot is furnished with a range of suspects, including Ratchett's nervy secretary (Anthony Perkins), an imperious Russian princess (Wendy Hiller), a simple Swedis