thisbluespirit: (Default)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
Do you know what The Lady Vanishes is? Apart from a film I should have seen years ago; I feel deprived on behalf of a teenaged me who would have loved it to death. And apart from the oldest thing I have ever watched in my life (as far as I can think); the flickering was a culture shock to start with. Anyway, it's a perfect Yule-fandom discovered just too late and way too early, that's what it is.





Margaret Lockwood is adorable, Michael Redgrave is great fun, May Whitty is wonderful and basically not only is it mystery and international conspiracy on a steam train, it passes the Bechdel test several times, has more than one lady spy in disguise, banter, two chaps who wondered in out of PG Wodehouse and are only interested in the cricket, and even bunnies.

To be fair, it also has more dodgy stereotypical foreigners than you can shake a stick at, but in mitigation they are on a train in a fictional country that's now under Nazi rule and thus all natives of the country are the enemy, even if nobody's technically at war yet. But, um, yes. Only the English can be trusted! /o\ Mind, it's probably not any worse than Agatha Christie and she never got this adorable. (It's also poking fun at this a little itself - all the English people will be in the dining car having tea, because it's tea-time!) There are probably a whole bunch of plot holes, but it's not the sort of film where I can bring myself to care because Iris and Gilbert are pretending to be Sherlock and Watson and playing about with magic boxes and what's not to love?



Also I can now actually say that I've watched an Alfred Hitchcock film, so that has to be an achievement.

*goes back to attempting to write Yuletide letter without making my poor writer's head explode*

Date: 17 Oct 2015 05:46 pm (UTC)
ext_3965: (10 Can't Talk - Watching)
From: [identity profile] persiflage-1.livejournal.com
*adds it to the list of things I want to watch because of my friends' recs*

Date: 17 Oct 2015 08:15 pm (UTC)
ext_3965: (David Collings - Silver Sapphire & Steel)
From: [identity profile] persiflage-1.livejournal.com
Ha, true!

Luckily the library has a copy so I'll pick that up on Monday...

Date: 18 Oct 2015 09:55 am (UTC)
ext_3965: (8.5 War Doctor Day of the Doctor)
From: [identity profile] persiflage-1.livejournal.com
I think chances are high I WILL like it, what with it being about lady spies (totally my jam - the one area of World War I AND II history that fascinated me most!), and all.

Date: 17 Oct 2015 06:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com
LOL!! I adore you! And now I want to see it!!

*HUGS*

Date: 17 Oct 2015 09:40 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shannonsequitur.livejournal.com
Embarrassingly, I have never seen this, but there was a BBC remake/adaptation (was it based on a book?) a couple of years ago with a pretty impressive cast of hey-it's-that-guy British actors. I wasn't blown away by it or anything, but it looks like I'd like the original.

Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:28 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] shannonsequitur.livejournal.com
Apparently the remake took out the screwball comedy elements and played it as a straight psychological thriller, which is disappointing.

Based on your synopsis of it, the one I would REALLY like to see is The Wicked Lady.

Date: 17 Oct 2015 10:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scripsi.livejournal.com
*small voice* I've never seen it. And I live with someone who aroed anything Hitchcock. I'm not all that keen on him, though I love Rebecca. It has George Sanders. :D

Date: 18 Oct 2015 12:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scripsi.livejournal.com
Rebecca is a good movie, if one feel up to it. It's very much over the top Gothic horror at first glance, but in reality the horror is on a psychologial level. Joan Fontaine is very good as the un named new wife of a very rich widow, beeing more and more opressed by the dead wife, rebecca, who was perfect. At least that how it seems.

Date: 19 Oct 2015 03:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scripsi.livejournal.com
If I don't remember it wrong, the Movie is pretty faithful to the book. But no, not a happy story and with some disturbing themes.

Date: 17 Oct 2015 10:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jaxomsride.livejournal.com
Another example of the original being the best. Hitchcock always does make a good movie. The oddest thing about this movie is the comic relief pair of Carters and Caldicott also end up as recurring characters.

Date: 18 Oct 2015 10:47 am (UTC)
pedanther: (Default)
From: [personal profile] pedanther
Continued to have their holidays interrupted by inconveniently-timed spy dramas, I gather.

Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:12 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jaxomsride.livejournal.com
Well I wasn't aware of it at the time and watching the Lady Vanishes I was wondering why I couldn't remember if I had seen it before because they were in a very similar film involving a train and spies and things.

Date: 19 Oct 2015 03:45 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jaxomsride.livejournal.com
I think it must have been that one. A look on IMDb reveals that they were playing the same characters!

Date: 17 Oct 2015 11:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swordznsorcery.livejournal.com
Oh, excellent. I thought you'd probably like that one, although I do tend to assume that everybody will like crackly black and white films! Your first Hitchcock, though. Crikey!

Date: 18 Oct 2015 09:04 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swordznsorcery.livejournal.com
I can quite understand your nervousness. To be honest, I don't go a bundle on horror and eerie stuff myself. Hitchcock has a bit of a misreputation really though, at least to the modern viewer. Possibly his stuff seemed scarier or more oppressively psychological at the time, I don't know. For the most part they really don't play that way today. Still, there's no reason to watch something just because it's famous! Jeepers, though! Your first 1930s film?! You've never seen "Bringing Up Baby"?! I know you don't have much experience with black and white novies, but you said that you were a bit different about comedy. I think you'd probably love that one. Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant are terrific together. I'd also have to recommend them in "The Philadelphia Story" from 1940, and "Holiday" which, like "Bringing Up Baby", is from 1938. They were so good at comedy-with-style in those days.

Cary Grant is an excellent doorway into Hitchcock movies, incidentally. The more straightforward adventure ones that he made a little later on.

Date: 18 Oct 2015 03:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] swordznsorcery.livejournal.com
*baffled squeaking*

Ah well, we're all different. Which is just as well, or I would have to like "Poldark"! :)

Date: 18 Oct 2015 11:36 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] justice-turtle.livejournal.com
Aww, I love Philadelphia Story, but then I'd seen the musical version "High Society" (which I find extremely tiresome) first and felt the B&W non-musical was a vast improvement - especially in the casting. Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly simply can't bring the hatesex UST the way Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant can, nor is Frank Sinatra a palatable substitute for Jimmy Stewart. So I'm kinda prejudiced in favor of "Philadelphia Story".

(And once again we prove that what I like, you do not, and vice versa. XD Perhaps "Philadelphia Story" hadn't enough fake hair for you... ^_^)

Date: 18 Oct 2015 02:49 pm (UTC)
liadt: Close up of Oichi drawing her sword close to her face with a sword blade meeting hers (DC Ten out of Ten)
From: [personal profile] liadt
Hurrah! I feel slightly jealous of you - the old film world is your oyster! 1930's Hitchcock films are probably the safest I think(?). I think they're all downloadable for free off internet archive. But most of them turn up on telly.

Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:28 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sallymn.livejournal.com
I think I did see this years ago - certainly the name and the piccies have the glow of a good, if just-out-of-reach memory...

I have seen a few of the most obvious Hitchcocks - Psycho, most of Vertigo, Rear Window (which I loved)

Date: 18 Oct 2015 10:14 pm (UTC)
ext_26142: (Hard Boiled Bogart by beccadg)
From: [identity profile] beccadg.livejournal.com
*Lacks Hitchcock icon so uses a black and white movies icon.

I adore Hitchcock so I've seen lots of his movies. Glad the first one you watched proved to be one you also enjoyed. <3

Date: 19 Oct 2015 01:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] singeaddams.livejournal.com
Hitchcock isn't so much thriller or horror (except where Psycho is concerned) but he's does suspense so well! I have to see this film and Rebecca. YOU have to see 'The Problem with Harry.' It's right up your alley and you'll see how well Hitchcock does comedy and romance. True, everyone is shuffling a corpse back and forth but he's just a prop.

BTW: 'North by Northwest' is good. 'Rear Window' is also good, 'Vertigo' is long and ridiculously unbelievable and (not Hitchcock but since it's been mentioned) 'The Philadelphia Story' made me retch though I love Jimmy Stewart with a passion. (The dad claims he had an affair with a younger woman because his daughter wasn't paying enough attention to him?! Ewwwww.)

Date: 23 Oct 2015 01:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dimity-blue.livejournal.com
Part of the fun of old films is watching all the English characters be Very, Very Stereotypically English. All stiff upper lips, honour in the face of certain doom, and everything can be fixed with a nice cup of tea.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the film so much.

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