The Lady Vanishes – Two equally good versions

It is always a mixed blessing when watching remakes of an original, especially when the original has the “Master of suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock’s stamp in various scenes. As always, Hitchcock’s “suspense movies” have one twist after the other, making you wonder what is the “MacGuffin” – the crux/ the core idea of the story.  There are three versions of this story, two of which are available on You Tube. The 2012 version seems to be unavailable on any online platform in India (though available on Amazon Prime USA).

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The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Genre: Mystery/ “Spy Adjacent” thriller

Platform: You Tube

Time: 1 hour 35 minutes

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Margaret Lockwood (Iris Henderson). Michael Redgrave (Gilbert Redman). Paul Lukas (Dr. Egon Hartz). May Whitty (Miss Froy).

Plot:    Musicologist Gilbert Redman and Iris Henderson have had multiple feuds before they board a train in a European country Bandrika. Gilbert who has been around to document Bandrika’s folk music is clearly skeptical but is slowly convinced that there really was a Miss Froy, who had helped iris, when a brick , intended for Miss Froy, fell on her head, leading to everyone concluding that she is suffering the after effects of the ‘head injury’. Iris wonders why everyone is lying about not seeing Miss Froy, with whom she had been friendly. Iris suspects that there is some kind of conspiracy afoot to kidnap Miss Froy who isn’t someone she claims to be, a humble governess…

The film was entirely shot in studio and it is evident in the way most of the scenes have that ‘studio’ feel. That said, it is still one of the most playfully written screenplays by Hitchcock’s constant collaborator and wife, Alma Reville. There is an overall feeling of pulling the viewer by the nose and pointing in different directions. We know that everyone except Iris is clearly in on “some conspiracy” but we do not know what. The plot steadily accelerates to its climatic shootout and the bold and daring escape from “Bandrika” to “Switzerland”. Most of us can’t be sure whether the kindly, somewhat eccentric old woman could be a spy and she denies being one too but we are not too sure. The end reveals otherwise.

There are enough pointers to the “Hitchcock touch” – such as the huge close up of a mysterious hand slowly moving the brick to target Froy but which instead falls on Iris’s head. The supposedly spiked drinks which  the duo are about to drink where the glasses are in the foreground which we the audience know but not the unsuspecting lead duo. A mysterious ‘conjurer’ who almost kills the leading duo but after a few moments, smiles happily his way past the leading duo, leading the doctor to suspect that Iris has been suffering serious delusions; and so on.

For its time, Iris is shown as a somewhat ‘bold’ woman whose ideas of marriage are not exactly conventional as she hints at flings and is finally setting for matrimony with a supposedly straight but dull man. There are two cricket mad fanatics who are only intent on reaching England for a crucial test match and to hell with all the people on the train, including the missing woman and the “young woman making up a devil of a fuss”.  These are pre-WW2 Englishmen who are straight and narrow and will always do the right thing for England, come what may. There are also a couple on an illicit affair where the man doesn’t want to be found out as he is a judge. The film is an overall delightful film that has the right mix of suspense punctuated by peppy crackling dialogues and Free on You Tube

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 5 out of 5

Photography – 5 out of 5

 

Total – 4.8 out of 5

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The Lady Vanishes (1979)

Genre: Mystery/ “Spy Adjacent” thriller

Platform: You Tube

Time: 1 hour 39 minutes

Director: Anthony Page

Cast: Elliott Gould (Robert Condon). Cybill Shepherd (Mrs Amanda Kelly). Angela Lansbury (Miss Froy). Herbert Lom (Dr. Egon Hartz).

Plot:   American heiress Mrs Amanda Kelly is treated sympathetically by Miss Froy, due to her drinking antics ending up with a severe hangover, when they board a train in Nazi Germany. When Amanda wakes up from a nap in her compartment, everyone in the compartment denies ever seeing Miss Froy. Newspaperman Robert Condon is sure that this is a case of some kind of hangover inspired by Kelly’s binge drinking and also with Dr. Hartz’s suggestions that this could be due to Kelly’s antics the previous night, where her effort to mimic Hitler had met with the local SA’s displeasure who had literally thrown her overboard from the table where she was strutting. Kelly is sure that she has seen Miss Froy and something bad has happened to her…

When I saw this film on its initial release, at Sterling theatre, I was unaware that this was a remake of the Hitchcock film and enjoyed it. Years late I became aware of the original when I bought Donald Spoto’s book on Alfred Hitchcock. Sometime in the 1990s I saw the “original” and was pleasantly surprised how much the original and this color version were alike, almost to the point of being a scene by scene, shot by shot and even some line-by-line remake of the 1938 film. So; does it succeed? Admirably so.

There is a lightweight touch to the overall proceedings including keeping the same characters as the original, especially the cricket mad duo Charters and Caldicott. Then there is the illicit couple on an illicit weekend and other multiple characters. The film is tailored to then rising star Cybil Shepherd’s reputation as a ‘comedienne’ and she is excellent as the loud American heiress. Her comic timing more than makes up, to keep the overall atmosphere lightweight. The musicologist is replaced by a Life magazine photographer thus making both the lead characters American, to appeal to a larger (= American) audience while keeping the peripheral characters British. Nazi Germany is explicitly mentioned and lest someone thinks otherwise, there are enough shots of German soldiers and finally an SS officer in his all-black uniform, leaving no doubt that this is Nazi Germany and surely poor Miss Froy must have some vital secret about the upcoming war.

There are some superb shots of the “German train”, traversing the “German Bavarian landscape” – all the train scenes were shot in Austria and the Austrian Railways are thanked at the film’s ending. Since Shepherd has the better written role, she gets more time onscreen and like the original, she (and most other characters on the train), wear the same dress throughout the film which is free on You Tube

Script – 4 out of 5

Story – 4 out of 5

Direction – 4 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

Total – 4 out of 5