The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Movie Reviews (part 3) (50 movies items)

" The Ups: Excellent script. Interesting characters. Fun details. Charismatic girl in the lead. Masterfully tense. The Downers: It has pretty dated humor. "

Gossip Girl - (Title from the Motion Picture) (110 movies items)

"3x14: The Lady Vanished"

Film Diary - January 2013 (55 movies items)

" TV (RECORDED TO DVR) / REWATCH Date watched: 26th January, 2013 Project: Classics Why?: Not seen this one for a while Director: Alfred Hitchcock Thoughts: I quite liked this one. The Bechdel Test = Pass I think? | Two Women = Yes, several | Talking = Yes | About a man = The main two women do speak about marriage, but then on with the plot, so I think we can say no tbh. | "

A classic

“Since I'm a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock, of course, I was really eager to check this out. At first, I was wondering where the whole thing was getting to (I never read beforehand what a movie is about) and, during the first scenes, I thought it would be some kind of farce. Eventually, I understood that the hotel sequence was actually there only to establish all those peculiar characters. Indeed, the real action was to take place later on, on the train. There, it became one of those spellbinding thrillers that only Hitchcock could make back then more than 70 years ago. It was just fascinating to see this woman getting back to her seat and asking where was this old lady who simply vanished. I mean, this has been copied so many times through the years, it was just pretty neat to see Hitchcock” read more

“I'd call The Lady Vanishes lesser Hitchcock but it does hit on some of his more common tropes. We've a train, a Macgufffin and a case of mistaken (or missing) identity wrapped up in this story of Margaret Lockwood's character searching for a vanished without a trace woman on a train. The search itself is rather compelling as is the interplay between Lockwood and Michael Redgrave (who joins in the search) but the movie quickly devolves into an extended allegory about England's hesitancy to fight Germany in World War II.

This is essentially the movie's downfall. The character's attitudes towards war are one note and exaggerated and those final scenes feel more like an infomercial than a satisfying ending to the story. Unlike something like The Great Dictator It doesn't really ” read more

Movies Watched in 2012 (421 movies items)

"1st viewing: DVD"