#the lady vanishes

[k-wame]

Basil Radford & Naunton Wayne THE LADY VANISHES | dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1938

[thehitchcockbrunette]

Hitchcock + Trains

The 39 Steps (1935)

The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Suspicion (1941)

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Strangers on a Train (1951)

North By Northwest (1959)

[mametupa]

[fuzzyghost]

[charlottenewtons]

The Lady Vanishes (1938) dir. Alfred Hitchcock

[nine-frames]

"See his, uh, fascinating act, The Vanishing Lady."

The Lady Vanishes, 1938.

Dir. Alfred Hitchcock | Writ. Sidney Gilliat & Frank Launder, based on the novel "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Lina White | DOP Jack E. Cox

[wellntruly]

oh man, old movies!! my dad was a huge movie guy so I grew up watching that. My movie knowledge is basically 30s-50s and then abrupt jump to the 2000s lol It's instilled in me an adoration for bombastic musicals and over the top Hijinks. I absolutely adore the Marx Brothers and Basil Rathbone is, in my opinion, DRASTICALLY underappreciated. He was a fantastic Sherlock, but he was also such an amazing chameleon in so many vastly different roles! What are your favs with them, or any advice on what I should watch based on those loves.

Hi buddy!!!! WHAT a fun brief, have I got recs for you:

First up for sure for sure, have you ever seen Love Me Tonight (1932), by Rouben Mamoulian? One of the most insane things I have ever seen, COMMMMPLIMENTARY. It’s a pre-Code musical comedy with killer songs that are themselves having a lot of meta fun with the concept “musical comedy”—it’s wild! So funny, so strange, Myrna Loy is there being hilariously horny, just an exquisitely bonkers time.

Where: multiple copies just floating free on YouTube

And wow this is where I discover that I am still vanishingly low on Basil Rathbone movies! But you’ve made me think of mysteries, and gosh I really really loved The Lady Vanishes (1939). One of the lesser seen Hitchcocks, according to Letterboxd it’s all the way back in the 15th most popular, and that’s so crazy because it rules. Its mix of comedy, drama, twists, and an increasingly imperative political angle actually reminded me most of all of Bong Joon Ho. Two very charming lead performances too, which I bet you'll like!

Where: Criterion Channel, HBO Max, Prime

And since you mentioned that you had a sort of abrupt halt at the end of the 50s, if you want another wild musical, I cannot get enough of showing people Bob Fosse’s Sweet Charity (1969). It totally flopped at the time because half the audiences were over studio musicals, and the other half that did still love a musical were baffled by this one’s edge. But today, it feels like such a treasure. Unbelievably funny, mesmerizing dance sequences, inventive editing, full of colors and life and yet again, this fascinating dark undercurrent, sometimes overcurrent.

Where: this one can be harder to find, but you can always try your local library, I have a lot of pals who use theirs to find all sorts of old movies

Signed, Your Classic Films Thesaurus

[whitewaterpaper]

Denna månad har jag sett klassisk SF, klassisk fredriksdal och en remake på en klassisk Hitchcock. Det blir svällande muskler, svingande svärd, sjungande värjor, damer som försvinner och one liners som haglar.

Arnbergs Korsettfabrik (2000) [👍🔁🆓🎭] Eva Rydbergs klassiska omstöpning av Poppes Oskulden från Mölle. En fortfarande genuint charmig och rolig pjäs jag tycker om att återkomma till.

Battle in Outer Space / Uchû daisensô (1959) [👍🆓] Japansk SF, väldigt gediget producerad. Bra story, och bra special effekter. Regisserad och skriven av samma man som skänkte världen Godzilla.

Dark Star (1974) [👎] John Carpenter, över lag bra special effekter och produktion. Dock konstigt manus som gör att jag tappar intresset snabbt.

En dam försvinner / Lady Vanishes, the (1979) [__] Överlag sevärd remake på Hitchcock-klassikern. Mer hysterisk än spännande, Cybil Sheppard (i rollen som Kelly) och Elliott Gould (hennes manliga kärleksintresse) tenderar slå över på överspel men Angela Lansbury gör en bra roll.

Freelance (2023) [__] Vill väldigt gärna vara en "Jakten på Stenen"-actionkomedi, men blir mest konstig.

Gullivers Resor / Gulliver's Travels (1939) [👎🆓] Klassisk animerad film uppskattad av många. Dock då ej mig.

Herrskap och Tjänstehjon (2006) [👍🔁🆓🎭] Ännu mer klassisk fars på Fredriksdal. Rydberg är i högform.

Samson and the Slave Queen / Zorro contro Maciste (1963) [👍🆓] Varför plockade amerikanarna bort Zorro Från titeln kan man undra. Väldigt underhållande film jag med all säkerhet kommer se om.

Sinbad: The Battle of the Dark Knights (1998) [👎🆓] Oinspirerad film som började med att konstatera att Sinbad behöver vara lite mer tonåring...

Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989) [👎🆓] Rörigt och på gränsen till osebar film med Lou Ferrigno i rollen som Sinbad. Lou Ferrigno som Sinbad är typ det enda positiva som finns att säga om filmen.

Sinbads Tusen Äventyr / 7th Voyage of Sinbad, the (1958) [👍🔁🆓] Klassiskt Sinbad-äventyr.

Warcraft: The Beginning (2016) [🔁] Mindes den som överraskande bra, men upplevde den nu som tämligen avslagen. Kanske för att den här öppnade för uppföljare mot slutet som aldrig kom?

Har man, som jag, en viss fäbless för Zorro tycker jag man skall satsa sina minuter denna månad på Samson and the Slave Girl. Känner man att man vill sikta lite högre ser man med fördel Battle in Outer Space som är väl värd en chans.

Edit: Glömde emojisarna.

[filmografie]

Favorite films watched in August 2023:

The Hit (1984), dir. Stephen Frears

The Small Back Room (1949), dir. Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell

The Lady Vanishes (1938), dir. Alfred Hitchcock

Black Narcissus (1947), dir. Emeric Pressburger & Michael Powell

The Long Farewell (1971), dir. Kira Muratova

[sirbogarde]

hi im in love with them

(The Lady Vanishes)

[apocalypticavolition]

Film Thoughts

So in an effort to become more cultured and whatnot I figured I might as well get the streaming service for film nerds. Way too many essential films I haven't seen, so why not knock a bunch out? Here's what I watched in the last week.

The Graduate

It's rare for a romantic comedy (well, dramedy, but still, it's hilarious) to be aware that its male protagonist is a horrible person whose only virtue, if you can call it that, is an unrelenting persistence in getting what he wants. It's even rarer for those with incompatible romantic leads to be aware of exactly how miserable they're going to make each other once the honeymoon phase wears off. The Graduate is famous for its ending that makes it very clear exactly how badly its protagonists have torpedoed their lives. But I'd really like to highlight that delightfully horrible moment in the middle, when Dustin Hoffman's character drags Katharine Ross to the front row of a strip club and - for basically the only time in the film until the ending - feels something resembling the human emotion of regret as she is humiliated by the dancer and brought to tears. Anne Bancroft is a fantastic Mrs. Robinson, a woman whose initial affair with Hoffman and perpetually caustic attitude don't quite manage to hide how desperately depressed she really is. A+, should have seen it a lot sooner.

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

I've seen Time Bandits, so I'm honestly not sure why I expected anything different. Terry Gilliam adapts a German novel about a tall-tale-telling nobleman (played by John Neville) who fought in the Russo-Turkish War of the 1730s. It's... well, with just a little effort you could easily make it a sequel to Time Bandits. The big differences are that the Baron's obligatory child companion is a girl this time (Sarah Polley) and that he only has one dwarf (Jack Purvis) in the party instead of six, with his other companions being a variety of dudes with extraordinary abilities. Like the Bandits, the Baron jumps from fantastic location to location, visiting a city under siege, Greek myths, and a distant ocean. Finding Robin Williams as the King of Space on the moon is a new touch at least. But sadly, where Bandits's strange ending is almost entirely based on how its plot unfolded bar Sean Connery's unexplained presence in the present, Baron doubles down on the inexplicable at the last minute and deliberately muddles its own finale. I'm not sure Gilliam really ever knew how to end stories. Everything else was quite fun though.

The Delta

An obscure indie film about a young man (Shayne Gray) in Tennessee who embraces his queer leanings and goes boating with a black Vietnamese immigrant (Thang Chan). It's the kind of indie film I often find myself bouncing off of, avoiding a clear dramatic arc in favor of atmosphere and subtle characterization, but on the whole I was drawn in. Chan was a particular delight, demonstrating the difficulties his character had as a queer immigrant of unusual heritage navigating the south in the 90s. It's obvious their relationship is going to fall apart, but I rooted for it anyway. I also enjoyed an earlier scene in the film in which Gray hooks up with a middle-aged man with fetishes that end the encounter prematurely, despite the man's begging as Gray prepares to leave. Sadly, this is another film with ending problems, escalating to a violent conflict that feels more like it was about shocking the audience that anything else. It's still worth watching for Chan's performance.

Inside Llewyn Davis

I really enjoy the Coen Brothers. Oscar Isaac plays the titular character, the Coens' take on real folk singer Dave van Ronk, a talented musician whose impulsiveness and pride consistently prevent him from ever finding real success. Davis remains a more sympathetic character than the company he keeps in part because of the grief of his former musical (and romantic?) partner's death and in part because he does consistently try to do right by his friends even as he makes poor decision after poor decision. Other strong performances in the film include Carey Mulligan, who is almost completely unlikable but dominates every scene she's in, and of course John Goodman who could play a decayed corpse and still be nominated for several awards. In this case he plays a complete asshole of a jazz musician with a heroin problem. It's a fun look at a fictitious variant of the New York folk music scene, but honestly "Coen Brothers" should have already told you whether or not you'd like it.

The Lady Vanishes

Since the Criterion Channel cycles their roster monthly and Hitchcock is being kicked off the streams at the end of this month, I figured I'd give him a bit of attention. The Lady Vanishes offers up a simple enough story: bride-to-be Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) crosses paths with Miss Froy (May Whitty) on a train, but Miss Froy vanishes and Iris has to team up with Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) when no one will admit to having seen the woman, some for merely selfish reasons and others for far more sinister ones. It's a bit too "civilized Brits keeping their chins up amid wicked foreigners" for my liking, but the mystery is a good one and the suspense keeps up even as the characters unravel it. Apparently side characters Charters and Caldicott (who were kinda gay for each other, just saying) were so popular that the BBC just kept using them, which I... do not understand at all. A fun movie, but not Hitchcock's best.

Rear Window

Okay I've already seen this one, but it's been years so it was time to watch it again dammit. I don't know if Rear Window is Hitchcock's best, but it's my favorite. A film that's as much about film as it is about spying on your neighbors, Rear Window is a technical marvel. James Stewart and *checks notes* future princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly-

*checks notes again*

Nope, that's what it says. Hell of a career move.

-star in this thriller about a man who tragically broke his leg about five years before TV became popular and so had to turn to voyeurism to pass the time instead. When he's not spying on the hot dancer or the lonely over-30 woman who is about ready to kill herself from the loneliness, he solves crime! Seriously, just watch it, unless you don't like movies where the dog doesn't live. (Spoiler alert: the dog does not live and its owners are fucking distraught.)

The Cat from Outer Space

Imagine crossing E.T. with Hocus Pocus and adding some of the cast of M*A*S*H, then carefully distilling all of that quality entertainment, tossing it in the trash, and turning the dregs into film. I cannot even begin to fathom why the Criterion Channel has this movie. Its individual scenes are blandly predictable while its overall plot veers wildly from concept to concept (the military reacts to an extraterrestrial probe! the heroes need to gamble on sports and then at a pool hall to get gold! there's an air rescue scene!) in a mishmash of ideas that are each almost but not quite interesting. Since it does predate the kids films it so strongly resembles I won't ding it for having a scene where our alien cat levitates a bike for our hero to ride to safety, but I was so uninterested in this movie that I still kind of want to. Show this to your young kids, ideally when you don't have to be in the same room, but otherwise skip.

Rope

So this was a Hitchcock that I thought I hadn't seen but realized very shortly that I definitely had back in high school. Struggling against the limitations of the era, it's a Hays Code movie starring John Dall and Farley Granger as a murderous gay couple and it's shot to look like a single take despite the fact that they literally couldn't fit more than ten minutes of film into the cameras back then. The title refers both to the literal murder weapon and to the metaphorical noose tightening around the main characters' necks as they try to flaunt their criminal genius by throwing a dinner party with all of their victim's family and friends while he's stuffed into the table they're eating off of. Dall, the sociopathic dom of the relationship, is all too pleased with himself and confident they have everyone (including James Stewart) fooled, while Granger, the obedient sub, slowly cracks under the guilt. You should definitely watch this, especially if you somehow didn't notice how gay it was.

[mametupa]

[mannyblacque]

THE LADY VANISHES (1938)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

[courseyoulovemeyoudontknowme]

The Lady Vanishes (1938, Alfred Hitchcock)

27/01/2024

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

The story is based on the novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White.

A remake was made in 1979 entitled The Lady Vanishes, directed by Anthony Page, with Angela Lansbury in the role of Miss Froy.

A train is running from the Balkans towards London when an avalanche stops it in a remote village. In the hotel where they are forced to stay overnight, they meet some English citizens: Iris Henderson, the young heiress of a rich jam producer, returning from a holiday with two friends and headed to London to get married to a nobleman; Miss Froy, amiable old lady in a tweed suit, housekeeper and music teacher for six years in that country and about to return to her homeland; Caldicott and Charters, cricket fans, very upset about the forced interruption of their trip which risks making them miss the final phase of a test match in Manchester; Gilbert, a musician with a passion for folklore who records folk songs with a little too much noise, resulting in a lively confrontation with Iris; a couple of lovers whose greatest concern is not to be recognized.

Miss Froy tries to escape into the woods, after leaving a coded message contained in the musical notes of a melody that Gilbert must learn by heart and take to the British Foreign Office in case she fails to save herself.

As promised Iris and Gilbert go to the Foreign Office in Whitehall to report the coded message.

The expiration of the contract that Gainsboroug (subsidiary of Gaumont-British) had taken over from Gaumont and Hitchcock had to complete the second film (the first was Young and Innocent) foreseen by the agreement with Edward Black.

In May 1936 Frank had proposed to Gainsboroug to buy the rights to White's novel, he had worked on the screenplay together with Sidney Gilliat but Roy William Neill, the director who had been entrust with the direction, din not complete the film.

The role of the lovable old spy was entrusted to Dame May Whutty, who would later be cast in a minor role in Suspicion.

In the role of the rich young bourgeois the director used Margaret Lockwood, under contract to the production company; in the role of the penniless musician Hitchcock would have liked Robert Donat, the protagonist of The 39 Steps, who had to give it up for health reasons; Michael Redgrave was the chosen, already famous as a young theater actor in John Gielgud's company, here at his first film test: the director liked him for his detached and casula style.

In the fundamental interview given by Alfred Hitchcock to François Truffaut, published for the first time in 1966, the director said about this film of his: "It was shot in 1938 in the small studio in Islington, on a thirty meter platform and with a wagon on top."

In addition to all his dearest themes (the incredibleity of the truth and the game of appearances, spies, travel, the relationship between a couple and love, humor) there is a strong political connotation, influenced by international current affairs: 1938 is the year of the Munich Agreement, evoked by the white handkerchief waved by the lawyer, an unpleasant neutralist who, regardless of his lover and the other Englishmen, hands himself over to the spies and gets himself killed. Finally, the main enemy of the film, Doctor Hart, alludes to Germany both his surname and in his origin ( in that same year Czechoslovakia also begins to "disappear", with the annexation of the Sudetenland to Germany, a prologue of what will happen in the following year). Hitchcock declares anti-Nazi sentiments expressed on other occasions in his films (The Man Who Knew Too Much, The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, Foreign Correspondent, Saboteur, Lifeboat, Notorious).

[nitrateglow]

1938, 1957, 1961, 1979, 1998, 2010

1938 - The Lady Vanishes. It's an earlier Hitchcock film, but also one of the ones I rewatch the most. It's a lot of fun.

For 1957, it's a tie between Throne of Blood and Funny Face-- what a double feature that'd make!

1961 - Blast of Silence. My favorite noir and my favorite Christmas movie.

1979 - The Castle of Cagliostro. It's a great caper/adventure film, but it has a melancholy undercurrent I find very appealing. One of my most rewatched movies in general.

1998 - The Big Lebowski. Absolutely hysterical. I like the Coen Brothers, but this is the only film of theirs I really, really love.

As for 2010, that's hard... mainly because I'm having a hard time thinking of anything... but Tangled was very cute and came out that year, so I'll choose that one!