Dr. Constantine (named Stavros Constantine in the 2006 game adaptation) is the tritagonist of Agatha Christie's 1934 Hercule Poirot novel, Murder on the Orient Express, and most of its adaptations.
He was portrayed by the late George Coulouris in the 1974 film adaptation, voiced by Nolan North in the 2006 video game adaptation, and portrayed by Samuel West in the 2010 television film adaptation in Agatha Christie's Poirot.
History[]
Dr. Constantine is a Greek physician who boarded the Orient Express at Belgrade Station. He is described as a small, dark man. On the Orient Express, he travels in the Athens-Paris coach.
After the death of Samuel Ratchett, Dr. Constantine assisted Hercule Poirot and Monsieur Bouc to find the killer on the train, before they discovered Ratchett's true identity as Lanfranco Ratchett, a notorious kidnapper who was responsible for the kidnapping and murder of Daisy Armstrong, but had got away.
After the killers were revealed to be other 12 passengers and the train's conductor, who more or less knew the Armstrong family and the falsely accused maid and killed Cassetti for justice, Constantine supported Bouc's idea and advised Poirot to let them go free, while he would alter his medical report to hide the truth, due to him sympathizing with the suspects and their motive to seek justice.
In other adaptations[]
In 2010 film[]
In this adaptation, which omitted the role of Cyrus Hardman, Dr. Constantine became one of the twelve killers instead. Here, he was a Greek-American obstetrician from Long Island, who took care of Sonia Armstrong until she died of miscarriage due to Daisy's demise. Enraged by Cassetti's crime and sympathizing with the Armstrongs, Dr. Constantine decided to join the murder.
During the investigation, Dr. Constantine faked the crime scene, making others believe that a fictional mobster who killed Cassetti had escaped from a window. He also tried to misled Poirot, but it proved to be a failure. By the end of the film, he was shown to be in surprise and disbelief when Poirot decided to spare all of the killers.
In 2017 film[]
- Main article: Dr. Arbuthnot
In the 2017 film adaptation, Dr. Constantine was omitted, with his occupation as a physician given to Col. John Arbuthnot (who was called Dr. Arbuthnot in this version) and was depicted as an African-British. Still, personality-wise, Dr. Arbuthnot is more like an incarnation of Colonel Arbuthnot in the novel, instead of Dr. Constantine.
