ChanBot
i must have seen a different film!!
Onlinewsma
Absolutely Brilliant!
Nicole
I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Prismark10
This BBC remake of The Lady Vanishes reverts to the source novel, The Wheel Spins rather than the Hitchcock film from 1938.Iris Carr (Tuppence Middleton) is a self centred young socialite in the Balkans of the 1930s. Returning back to England by train she strikes up a conversation with an English governess Miss Froy and later alarmed by the mysterious disappearance of her. However no one else in the train remembers seeing Miss Froy, Iris thinks that some of the passengers may have a motive to lie.Luckily for her a handsome Englishman, Max Hare (Tom Hughes) comes to her aid and also lend some romance.The film was trailed as a dashing mystery adventure with romance. It actually came across as rather dull and creaky. The reason being the book it was based on probably is not that good hence why the Hitchcock film added certain plot elements and the comedic characters Charters and Caldicott.This film is actually rather flat, hampered by the lack of suspense and mystery.
blanche-2
By calling this PBS program "The Lady Vanishes," one believes he or she will see a remake of the Hitchcock film of the same name.However, that's not the case. Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for purchasing a book to make a film and then using a section or even a paragraph from it and building the story around it.Hitchcock's source material was a novel called "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Linna White, and this is an adaptation of that, which only bears a passing resemblance to "The Lady Vanishes." An elderly British woman who befriends a younger woman seems to disappear from a train, but no one can remember seeing her in the first place.The young woman in this case has the same name as the early film, Iris Carr, and here she's played by Tuppence Middleton. She's a playgirl, with plenty of money and drunken friends, and they've all made a spectacle of themselves at the hotel where they stayed in Croatia. Iris becomes ill, supposedly of sunstroke, and nearly misses her train.When she boards the train, she finds that not many people speak English, and it seems like an awful lot of the people from the hotel are on it. Still not feeling well, she is befriended by a Miss Froy who takes tea with her. Iris falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Miss Froy is gone. She seems to have disappeared off of a moving train. A handsome young man, Max Hare (Tom Hughes) befriends her and tries to help. But it starts to seem to him and to others that Ms. Carr is off her nut.The film started slowly, and for this, I blame the leading woman and the direction she received. She comes off as extremely unpleasant and bratty, and by the time she's plowed into the twelfth person without saying 'excuse me,' your interest is just about lost. Once other characters enter into the story, it picks up.It was great to see MI-5's Keeley Hawes, almost unrecognizable in a black wig, as a woman having a liaison with, of all people, Julian Rhind-Tutt playing a proper Englishman. In his younger days, with his unusual face he always played wild men, sporting long red hair and using his comic timing to perfection. Here, his hair is short and he is quite distinguished as a somewhat frosty Englishman.I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to be better.
Leofwine_draca
THE LADY VANISHES is the third adaptation of an old-time mystery novel. It was first made - to great success - by Hitchcock in the 1930s, and then a remake with Cybil Shepherd and Elliott Gould followed in the 1970s. This new version is a TV movie made by the BBC, and - somewhat inevitably - it's the weakest version yet.The problem with this adaptation is a mixture of both the script and the budget. It's obviously made to cash in on the success of DOWNTON ABBEY, but there's far too much of the socialising and not enough of the thriller. The first half hour is excruciatingly slow and even once the action shifts to the train it doesn't get much better. The scenes on the train feel claustrophobic and not in a good way; Hitch's version ended with a rousing action scene, but the drawn-out mystery here just fizzles out with a lack of inspiration and budget constraints.The cast is no better. Tuppence Middleton (TORMENTED) is the detestable heroine, and required to undergo a character arc from snobby and rude to warm and caring, but Middleton is too inexperienced to convince in the part. The likes of Keeley Hawes and Julian Rhind-Tutt are merely window dressing, their performances weak imitations of their roles in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS and THE HOUR respectively. As for Gemma Jones and Stephanie Cole, the actresses are game but their comedy value is virtually nil. Jesper Christensen must be thinking that his days of starring in James Bond movies are long in the past with this pitiful, by-the-numbers TV drama.
blakedw
I don't know if this is more faithful to the original book than the famous Hitchcock version. But if it is, it shows extraordinary vision of him to have seen the material for a good movie in this boring nonsense. Wholly without humour or tension, I see it has an estimated budget of £1850. Even at that priced, the BBC was swindled. This is one of those films where it is a real strain to write the required 10 lines of comment because all one can say is it is boring. The events before the start of the train journey are truncated so we get no sense of the purpose underlying the plot. Nor is there any sexual tension in the relationships. Although too long, it feels that some key scenes necessary to understanding the role of some characters must be missing. Or maybe those characters have no role and are just there to pad out the numbers. The actors cannot be blamed for any of this. Tuppence Middleton is beautiful and makes the best of her part. Others are either competent or better, with none of the odd comic standup turns which often disfigure remakes like the ITV Marple series. So all the blame has to go to the writer, Fiona Seres and the director, Diarmuid Lawrence. And to the BBC for not throwing this in the bin rather than on to our screens. Whatever you do, do not let this tedious waste of time discourage you from finding and watching the brilliant Hitchcock original.