Only the opening scenes take place on the overnight service from Marseilles to Paris, and they’re confined to a corridor, a washroom and the cramped sleeping compartment into which a woman smuggles a stowaway after she boards the train at Avignon.
Imagine Murder on the Orient Express with Hercule Poirot schlepping around Paris to question his suspects and you get the gist of debutant Costa-Gavras’s voguish adaptation of Sebastien Japrisot’s policier novel. Only the opening scenes take place on the overnight service from Marseilles to Paris, and they’re confined to a corridor, a washroom and the cramped sleeping compartment into which a woman smuggles a stowaway after she boards the train at Avignon. Later, the death of a perfume saleswoman sets a police inspector (Yves Montand) on the trail of an actress (Simone Signoret), her lover (Jean-Louis Trintignant), a seedy office worker (Michel Piccoli) and a trucker (Charles Denner).