Whilst traveling in pre-war Nazi Germany, a young couple realise a passenger seems to have been kidnapped off their train, but, no other passenger aside from themselves, recalls her.
On a train traveling through pre-WW II Germany, American heiress Amanda Kelly befriends a Miss Froy, an older nanny. But when Miss Froy disappears, everyone Amanda asks denies ever having seen her. Eventually Amanda persuades American photographer Robert Condon to help her search the train, during which they discover that Miss Froy wasn't quite what she seemed.
The last of the original Hammer films, it's a rather bad film which does not live up to either the best of the studio's films from the late 1950s to the early 1970s or the original Alfred Hitchcock film. The film follows the same basic storyline as the 1938 version but the execution is lacking. I had mixed feelings about the fact that, in certain aspects, the film stuck very closely to the original, even using many of the same lines. On the one hand, I wish that they had done something different as, otherwise, it makes the idea of the remake rather pointless. On the other hand, the new material is fairly bad so perhaps I was spared from being even worse than it was.
I like Elliot Gould but this isn't one of his better performances. He just natters on and on constantly. Cybill Shepherd is dreadful as Amanda Kelly, the "much married American heiress." She spends the entire film either speaking in a monotone, rushing her lines or screeching at the top of her lungs. They also have almost no chemistry. They're no Michael Redgrave or Margaret Lockwood. They're both thoroughly overshadowed and outacted by Arthur Lowe and Ian Carmichael as Charters and Caldicott, who were almost as good as Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford in the 1938 version, as well as by Herbert Lom as Dr. Hartz. Incidentally, I think that Lom - who played the title character in "The Phantom of the Opera" - is the only Hammer veteran to appear in their final film for 29 years. Angela Lansbury is good as Mrs Froy but, at 53, she was at least 15 years too young for the role.
Alfred Hitchcock was still alive when the film was released. I doubt that he ever saw it, which is perhaps for the best.
There's a strong tendency to compare Hitchcock's version of "The Lady Vanishes" with the 1979 version starring Elliot Gould, Cybill Shepherd, and Angela Lansbury. There's no need to do so. Both have the same title but entirely different moods. This doesn't make one "better" or "worse" than the other. They just should be judged on their own merits.
Both are thrillers, one more somber and tense, and the latter version more of a melodramatic mystery with comedic touches.
What I would suggest is that the viewer simply watch both versions, recognizing the strong and weak points of each. Both are enjoyable, but to interject a personal note, I tend to lean toward this 1979 version for its tone that's more like other mystery films such as "Charade" or "North By Northwest".
Enjoy them both as different cinematic expressions and let others worry about comparisons.
In August 1938, American heiress Amanda Kelly (Cybill Shepherd), while on a drunken binge, meets English governess and music teacher Miss Froy (Angela Lansbury) on a train from Bavaria to Switzerland. When Mrs Froy suddenly vanishes, no one will believe (or admit) that she was ever on the train, chalking it up to Amanda's imagination and coupled with her drinking. It's only when Amanda meets American photographer Robert Condon (Elliott Gould), and the two start poking around, that they discover what is really going on. The Lady Vanishes is a remake of The Lady Vanishes (1938) (1938), which was based on the novel The Wheel Spins by English crime writer Ethel Lina White [1876-1944]. The screenplay for the 1979 version was written by American screenwriter George Axelrod. Another remake, also called The Lady Vanishes (2013) was released in 2013. The car carrying Amanda, Robert, Miss Froy, and several other passengers is detached from the train and diverted onto an isolated track where German Schutzstaffel (SS) soldiers are waiting to take Miss Froy into custody. A shootout takes place, during which Froy reveals to Robert and Amanda that she is a British spy. She teaches a tune to them, the same tune that she was heard whistling at the beginning of the movie, then escapes from a back window and makes a run for it while dodging bullets. Robert and Caldicott (Ian Carmichael) get the train started again, and they outrun the SS. When Robert and Amanda finally make it to London, singing the encrypted tune all the way, Amanda ducks into a cab with him in order to avoid her fiancè who is waiting for her. They go to Whitehall to deliver the message, but suddenly they cannot remember the tune. In the final scene, as they try to remember it, they hear the tune being played on a piano. Opening the door into the piano room, they see Miss Froy playing it. She managed to escape successfully, and everyone happily hugs each other. We never find out the actual message, other than Miss Froy's admission that she is acting on the orders of General von Reider and must get the message through because 'there's going to be a war, you know.' Even Froy admits that she doesn't know the meaning of the tune. This film, being a remake of an old Alfred Hitchcock film, uses Hitchcock's trademark...the 'McGuffin', which he described as "the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories, it is almost always the necklace and in spy stories it is most always the papers." The thing that characterizes a MacGuffin is that the content of the tune, the jewels, or the papers is not important and, most times, never even revealed. It is something very minor that is often never fully seen or explained but is central to the plot. In the original movie, Miss Froy explains only that ...it contains, in code of course, the vital clause of a secret pact between two European countries.' a5c7b9f00b
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