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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*

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*
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Date: 17 Oct 2015 05:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Oct 2015 07:15 pm (UTC):-)
It's old but it's a genuinely fun, witty ride of a thriller.
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Date: 17 Oct 2015 08:15 pm (UTC)Luckily the library has a copy so I'll pick that up on Monday...
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 Oct 2015 09:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Oct 2015 06:42 pm (UTC)*HUGS*
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Date: 17 Oct 2015 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 17 Oct 2015 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:17 am (UTC)ETA: Yes, I believe they were both originally based on a book. Googling says it was The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White.
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:28 am (UTC)Based on your synopsis of it, the one I would REALLY like to see is The Wicked Lady.
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:35 am (UTC)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?
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Date: 17 Oct 2015 10:06 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:21 am (UTC)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.
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 09:04 am (UTC)Cary Grant is an excellent doorway into Hitchcock movies, incidentally. The more straightforward adventure ones that he made a little later on.
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 Oct 2015 03:10 pm (UTC)Ah well, we're all different. Which is just as well, or I would have to like "Poldark"! :)
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 03:43 pm (UTC)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
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 11:36 pm (UTC)(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... ^_^)
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Date: 19 Oct 2015 07:15 am (UTC)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)
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Date: 19 Oct 2015 07:19 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:28 pm (UTC)I have seen a few of the most obvious Hitchcocks - Psycho, most of Vertigo, Rear Window (which I loved)
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Date: 18 Oct 2015 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 18 Oct 2015 10:14 pm (UTC)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
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Date: 19 Oct 2015 07:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 19 Oct 2015 01:52 pm (UTC)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.)
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Date: 19 Oct 2015 04:31 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 23 Oct 2015 01:43 pm (UTC)I'm really glad you enjoyed the film so much.
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Date: 23 Oct 2015 04:13 pm (UTC)