Richard Rodney Bennett - Overture and Kidnapping (via Murder on the Orient Express: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

“I felt very strongly that the opening of the film, the main titles, should give one the sense of excitement and anticipation that one felt at the theatre, as a child, before the curtain went up. I remember saying to [Orient Express director] Sidney Lumet, ‘No one’s frightened by Agatha Christie, in 1974. We have to give them the feeling that they’re about to see a terrific entertainment.’

There was a certain amount of moaning from train aficionados over the fact that the sounds of the train were minimal because of all this music, and a loud cry from Bernard Herrmann [regarding including a waltz in the film]—‘Bennett got it all wrong! This is the TRAIN OF DEATH!’”

-Bennett, on his score for Murder on the Orient Express