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Originally Posted by Murmer99
I downloaded Murder on the Orient Express, which sounds intriguing after I read about it in this book I recently picked up, written by Lumet himself. So I'll try to watch that next when I have the time.
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In fear of sounding like an even bigger geek than usual, an interesting fact about Murder on the Orient Express is that the script wasn't in reality written by Lumet at all but by an uncredited Anthony Schaeffer, who's more famous for writing the original The Wicker Man and Sleuth but who also did most of the big 70s Agatha Christie adaptations, like Death on the Nile, usually without credit. He's also sometimes credited with writing Equus but that was his twin brother, Peter, making the Schaeffers a pretty talented family, I'm sure you'd agree. Nothing against Lumet but in my opinion, as outright screenwriters, the Schaeffers really were in a league of their own. It's interesting watching something like The Wicker Man or Sleuth now, knowing what else Schaeffer did; you get a far greater sense of his obsession with playing games with audience's heads. It's therefore no surprise that on returning to England to make Frenzy, Hitchcock's screenwriter of choice was Anthony Schaeffer.