Confidentially, I think you're a bit of a stinker, too...

[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*

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

*adds it to the list of things I want to watch because of my friends' recs*

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, those lists are never-ending, aren't they? - happily!

:-)

It's old but it's a genuinely fun, witty ride of a thriller.

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

Ha, true!

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

[thisbluespirit]

Oh, cool! And even if you don't like it, at least it's only 93 minutes of your time. :-)

[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.

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

LOL!! I adore you! And now I want to see it!!

*HUGS*

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, thanks! I'm a terrible person to know!

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

Not having seen the remake, I can't comment the other way around, but I found this pretty charming & fun & very much of its time (literally, as it's very much the feel and fear of Europe gearing up to war lying underneath it). The main cast is pretty adorable, too.

ETA: Yes, I believe they were both originally based on a book. Googling says it was The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

Ah, yes, that would be disappointing. As a straight thriller there are some nice moments, but yeah the screwball comedy was what I liked about it the most.

I'm looking forward to seeing The Wicked Lady! I hope it doesn't disappoint when it turns up. :-) If it's any use to you, the entire thing seems to be on YouTube?

[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

[thisbluespirit]

I've never watched a Hitchcock film before! I'm far too nervous a viewer, but this one is kind of like a mash up of screwball comedy with a political thriller & while its very much of its time, I also found it thoroughly engaging and charming.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

I read the book a long time ago, so I wouldn't mind watching that some time, then. I think it's the sort of thing I'd still try and wait till I was a bit better, though, first.

[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.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, I read that somewhere! They are fun, but I'm not sure what they would have got up to in their own film series - watched a lot of cricket?? :-D

[pedanther]

Continued to have their holidays interrupted by inconveniently-timed spy dramas, I gather.

[thisbluespirit]

Heh, what a nuisance for them! I read somewhere since that they kept putting them in things as a running gag to cheer people up while the war was on, and I suppose I can see why that could be a thing.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

Ah, I think Night Train to Munich deliberately riffed on The Lady Vanishes, also starred Margaret Lockwood on a train, and they let these two back in (under different names) just to finish things off?

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I think it must have been that one. A look on IMDb reveals that they were playing the same characters!

[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!

[thisbluespirit]

I'm such a nervous viewer when it comes to horror & thrillers, so I've never even tried to watch a Hitchcock film before. And, yes, I read the description of this on Amazon and it sounded like all the things I like and it pretty much was. :-)

I didn't mind the crackling once I got used to it. I just had never watched a 1930s film and sort of had assumed that crackling had gone out with silent films! But it was still a lot of fun, with some great one-liners.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

I actually have watched Philadelphia Story and felt it was all very tiresome, so I'm afraid I'm not good at this. I'll see how I go with Margaret Lockwood - it may well be that it's like with the ITC stuff vs regular UK TV - a lot of it is me reacting against old US-style presentations of things but having more tolerance for old British stuff (provided it's otherwise something I like). Which is a shame, because I'm certainly not averse to more Katherine Hepburn, but I think I'm the wrong audience here. /o\

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

*baffled squeaking*

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

[thisbluespirit]

To be fair, I was ill and I watched it downstairs, which predisposes me to be annoyed at things, but there we are.

Which is just as well, or I would have to like "Poldark"!

Only the old one! I can't see any problem with TV about wigs and copper mining! ;-p

[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... ^_^)

[thisbluespirit]

It may have been mainly because I was ill and watching it downstairs - I used to (and still occasionally do) get very frustrated with unfamiliar TV when I watch it downstairs because it's much more tiring for me than DVDs I can watch on my little TV upstairs lying down.

If it makes you feel any better, I also watched High Society first and I didn't care for that either!

I didn't feel inclined to sympathise with anyone in it, though - I was tired and ill and they were all rich and behaving badly and she apologised to her father when he should have apologised to her. *sighs at old time sexism* Now, if you want to give me an heiress to sympathise with, then Iris Henderson in this is just lovely and adorable and slightly world-weary and cynical and goes all out to try and help the old lady who helped her, even when a whole train full of people are against her. Even if I'm not arguing with Katherine Hepburn as a seriously great actor.

I don't really like fake hair, you know. I'm just willing to put up with it. (And, hey, film has fake hair; it's just that videotape shows everything up and makes it look more fake in a way that film as a medium doesn't. It's just about budget unfairness again, and I'm with the low-budget little people, except when I'm not, of course. ;-p)

[thisbluespirit]

I liked the journalist girl quite a lot, I have vague fuzzy memories?

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

I'm not sure I want an oyster yet? But I am happy to look forward to some more Margaret Lockwood, and I think I started with a good one! :-)

[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)

[thisbluespirit]

I can certainly imagine you enjoying Miss Froy! :-)

[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

[thisbluespirit]

It really was! I liked it a lot. :-)

[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.)

[thisbluespirit]

Okay, I will go look up The Problem With Harry, I promise! I'm slower at watching films, because it's harder for me than TV eps, so I only usually venture out for actors I really like, but I am getting better at it!

The dad claims he had an affair with a younger woman because his daughter wasn't paying enough attention to him?! Ewwwww.

Oh, yes, yes! I had such vague memories of it - I was rather ill when I watched it - but that was the bit. I mean, even for 1940 people, come on. Even a Victorian might hesitate before thinking that was an okay thing. /o\

I did get that everybody in it was v good, though. But, yeah. It was either not the film for me, or really not the right moment that I watched it in.

[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.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, indeed! :-)