User reviews

By calling this PBS program "The Lady Vanishes," one believes he or she will see a remake of the Hitchcock film of the same name.

However, that's not the case. Alfred Hitchcock was notorious for purchasing a book to make a film and then using a section or even a paragraph from it and building the story around it.

Hitchcock's source material was a novel called "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Linna White, and this is an adaptation of that, which only bears a passing resemblance to "The Lady Vanishes." An elderly British woman who befriends a younger woman seems to disappear from a train, but no one can remember seeing her in the first place.

The young woman in this case has the same name as the early film, Iris Carr, and here she's played by Tuppence Middleton. She's a playgirl, with plenty of money and drunken friends, and they've all made a spectacle of themselves at the hotel where they stayed in Croatia. Iris becomes ill, supposedly of sunstroke, and nearly misses her train.

When she boards the train, she finds that not many people speak English, and it seems like an awful lot of the people from the hotel are on it. Still not feeling well, she is befriended by a Miss Froy who takes tea with her. Iris falls asleep, and when she wakes up, Miss Froy is gone. She seems to have disappeared off of a moving train. A handsome young man, Max Hare (Tom Hughes) befriends her and tries to help. But it starts to seem to him and to others that Ms. Carr is off her nut.

The film started slowly, and for this, I blame the leading woman and the direction she received. She comes off as extremely unpleasant and bratty, and by the time she's plowed into the twelfth person without saying 'excuse me,' your interest is just about lost. Once other characters enter into the story, it picks up.

It was great to see MI-5's Keeley Hawes, almost unrecognizable in a black wig, as a woman having a liaison with, of all people, Julian Rhind-Tutt playing a proper Englishman. In his younger days, with his unusual face he always played wild men, sporting long red hair and using his comic timing to perfection. Here, his hair is short and he is quite distinguished as a somewhat frosty Englishman.

I was a little disappointed. I wanted it to be better.

There are several versions of the movie and then there is the book it is based on "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Lina White.

The most popular and the stick by which all others are measured is the Alfred Hitchcock version The Lady Vanishes (1938) (The Criterion Collection).

This rendition has quite a few TV actors of the time playing the various characters. One you will recognize right off is Selina Cadell. She plays Miss Froy. She has (102 credits) to her name.

This (2013) version was adjusted to be politically correct so you cannot "fast forward" as the clues and conclusion are different. The politics of the time are not mentioned but the flu is.

One may be put off by the main character being a snot. However, that is necessary to show how she reforms in adversity.

The basic story is of course a lady traveling on a train vanishes. When our heroine inquires as to her whereabouts everyone denies that the lady ever existed.

Based on the 1938 Hitchcock thriller of the same name (which I haven't seen), this looked like rather a good whodunnit. The cast if full of young up-comers and old stalwarts, many of whom seem to be doing the rounds in British TV at the moment.

The premise: a beautiful young socialite, Iris Carr, is making her way back to England by train after a Balkans holiday and finds herself befriended by a kind older lady who calls herself Mrs Froy. Disorientated by a fall at the station earlier, Iris drifts off to sleep, only to find on awakening that Mrs Froy has disappeared and nobody else seems to have seen her - in fact they don't believe she existed in the first place. Of course there are only two possible outcomes: the woman isn't real and Iris is barking mad, or she has genuinely disappeared and there's some sort of conspiracy going on.

Unfortunately the final hour dedicated to resolving the mystery is slow-paced, boring and ultimately all a bit predictable. Apart from Sandy McDade and Tuppence Middleton, all the other characters are stereotypes who get to do very little with their screen time. Middleton is superb, tackling Iris's transition from petulant snobbery to concern and brave determination with aplomb, but the plodding script can't keep up with her enthusiasm. It's definitely a Sunday afternoon movie, and one you can watch with Grandma - just don't expect edge-of-your-seat thrills.

For comparison, I have always hankered after another, more faithful adaptation of Strangers on a Train. The Highsmith original is on a completely different psychological plane to Hitchcock's superb adaptation, which plays with the banality of evil theme but adds ticking, suspenseful timebombs and a hero who may have moments of weakness but triumphs in the end.

The 2013 version of The Lady Vanishes will have to do instead. It is NOT a remake nor a version of nor even based on the Hitchcock film. Far from it. Bemoaning the absence of Charters and Caldicott misses the point entirely. This film is a much straighter adaptation of Hitchcock's original source material, The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White.

Even if this new production were rubbish, as a close adaptation of the original source, it would still offer worthwhile study by providing an illustration of how much craft the master added to create one of the best films of the 1930's. Let's face it, no one has read the novel. Hitch turns an essay in nervousness about more trouble in the Balkans into an appeasement era allegory of the difficulty of shaking people out of an apathetic response to tyranny and the virtues of resistance, all dressed in beautifully tailored cinematic clothes that will last forever.

Diarmuid Lawrence's The Lady Vanishes, however, is very far from rubbish. It has a powerful, beautifully judged central performance from an actress who, unlike Cybill Shepherd in what WAS a remake in 1979, is in the same class as Margaret Lockwood.

In the initial scenes she is part of a group of what the newspapers called Bright Young Things but Evelyn Waugh called Vile Bodies. She is able to stand out from her awful, shallow friends, however, with suggestions of an open mind and a wider view of the world. Without falling into clichés, Middleton distances herself in an afternoon and evening of misbehaviour then separates herself entirely by staying behind when her friends leave.

This turns out to be an empty gesture. After a failed attempt at adventure, she immediately returns to type missing her friends, refusing offers of company, throwing money around at the locals and falling back into the character of a rude, spoilt mademoiselle, shorn of her comforts.

This sets up the irony of her behaviour on the train when she finally discovers what it is that is truly different about her. However now, for a variety of reasons, people who can see the difference can't acknowledge it and people who can't see the difference misinterpret her. The only person who has understood her correctly has vanished. Lawrence's version holds on to this subtle psychological setup much longer than Hitchcock's. Those who think she's hysterical plot to sedate her. Those who know she isn't, hide themselves.

Middleton's work is a real treat. The rest of the cast may not have enough to work with (one of the reasons why Hitchcock conducted a major rewrite). And instead of a graceful denouement, the action does rather hit the buffers at the end of the line. Very nice lwork in the last scene, though, more reminiscent of North by North West.

However, despite a few shortcomings, this is a neat piece of period drama in its own right and casts a bright and valuable sidelight on Hitchcock's work as an adapter.

No one should put off by misguided criticism that it fails to live up to Lockwood and Redgrave. Unlike the 1979 rehash, it has earned its place on the shelf next to the Hitchcock version of the same novel.

Hitchcock's movie is wildly over-rated and people are far too snowed by the mumbling, bumbling cricket fans, Michael Redgrave's charm and Lockwood's beauty-in-distress.

The new version may not be perfect but it is most definitely not a remake of the 1938 movies, it's an adaptation of the book and far closer to the novel The Wheel Spins. Does it wrap up too quickly? Well, so does the book, unfortunately.

Hitchcock added way too much farce and a silly gun battle that veer so far from the nature of the novel as to be almost unbelievable.

Despite the ending, I recommend The Wheel Spins unreservedly. Its a dark psychological study of a mind almost sinking into madness. The author does a wonderful job of writing about a socialite who is drawn into a mystery way beyond any trouble she's ever had to deal with, one that makes her for the first time in her life feel alone and helpless.

I think I may have seen the Hitchcock original, in the dim and distant past, round my grandparents house while playing Kerplunk. Needless to say, my memories of it are hazy at best, so I can hardly compare it to this made for TV modern version.

Keeley Hawes plays the heroine who eventually feels the whole world is conspiring against her, and although I think there may be a few more clues to the solution compared to the 1938 classic, this doesn't make the frustration we feel for her predicament or the confusion as to what the hell's going on any less palpable.

Online talk has dismissed this remake as a cheap copy, but you know what? Judged on it's own merits, it's a super piece of entertainment, and all the moaners can get a life. NOTHING these days is unique, everything has been ripped off and imitated to the ninth degree, so why waste time worrying? ENJOY YOURSELF!! 7/10

The beginning does drag a touch, but once she's on the train and the characters start coming out of the woodwork, it is Game On. Tuppence is great, Tom Hughes is dishy, and best of all the plot shows EXACTLY how high handed doctors were right up into the 70s, Especially to women. Hysterical my left foot!! It's worth it just for the look at a time we should be very grateful to be done with.

The production does an excellent job with set design and costumes and if the story makes you feel frustrated I suggest it is your empathy to the character, not the story.

I probably made a mistake in coming to this most recent remake of "The Lady Vanishes" just days after watching Hitchcock's definitive 1939 version. There's just no comparison. Hitch's version was fast moving, exciting, suspenseful, funny and sexy while this version was by contrast, turgid, dull, predictable, humourless and staid.

The central character of Iris garners no interest from the viewer right from the start and quite why she's made to fall down a steep hill after witnessing a scene between the illicit lovers "Mr & Mrs Todmorton" is anyone's guess. Anyway, back at the hotel she throws a strop and decides to let her so called friends return to England before her, although within a day she's hey-presto on the next train herself, free spirit that she is. There she bumps into a friendly middle-aged woman who befriends her in the face of foreign frostiness, before the latter makes like the title and precipitates her attempts to find her and save her from a dastardly fate.

Only thing is you get no sense of connection between Iris and Miss Froy, in fact the latter witters on so much that if she sat next to me on a train I'd welcome any chance I got to escape her attentions. Moreover there's no mystery at all, the Hitchcock reveal of Miss Froy's writing her name in the condensation of the train window substituted for an English newspaper discarded in her compartment. There's no mysterious nun to alert suspicion, the romance between Iris and the professor's young assistant appears out of thin air while the rescue conclusion is wholly devoid of thrills.

I didn't feel the cast did much to lift an already stodgy production either, but the starriest players ever couldn't have made this dead duck fly. In trying, I presume to distance itself from being a slavish copy of the famous original it seemed to completely forget it was meant to be a romantic comedy-thriller.

Now excuse me while I try to forget I ever saw this whole dreary programme...

It was fun to watch. I enjoyed it a lot. Good acting, good use of the setting. Their stuck on a train and it's used to good effect. Nice set peices and clothing.

It was atmospheric and had the aesthetic vibe down right.

Some characters were more interesting and dynamic then others. The female lead was great but her male counterpart was bland and paled next to her. I didn't believe them together except they were both young and good looking.

This is a perfectly harmless good time that neither aspires to greatness nor falls into any overt pitfalls. It enjoys a solid mediocrity and is therefore enjoyable but I won't rewatch it and will forget it in a few weeks time.

THE LADY VANISHES is the third adaptation of an old-time mystery novel. It was first made - to great success - by Hitchcock in the 1930s, and then a remake with Cybil Shepherd and Elliott Gould followed in the 1970s. This new version is a TV movie made by the BBC, and - somewhat inevitably - it's the weakest version yet.

The problem with this adaptation is a mixture of both the script and the budget. It's obviously made to cash in on the success of DOWNTON ABBEY, but there's far too much of the socialising and not enough of the thriller. The first half hour is excruciatingly slow and even once the action shifts to the train it doesn't get much better. The scenes on the train feel claustrophobic and not in a good way; Hitch's version ended with a rousing action scene, but the drawn-out mystery here just fizzles out with a lack of inspiration and budget constraints.

The cast is no better. Tuppence Middleton (TORMENTED) is the detestable heroine, and required to undergo a character arc from snobby and rude to warm and caring, but Middleton is too inexperienced to convince in the part. The likes of Keeley Hawes and Julian Rhind-Tutt are merely window dressing, their performances weak imitations of their roles in UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS and THE HOUR respectively. As for Gemma Jones and Stephanie Cole, the actresses are game but their comedy value is virtually nil. Jesper Christensen must be thinking that his days of starring in James Bond movies are long in the past with this pitiful, by-the-numbers TV drama.

I find myself to be utterly annoyed with reviewers who compare this excellent BBC adaptation with Alfred Hitchcock's 1938 masterpiece. This version is a faithful adaptation of Ethel Lena White's psychological mystery novel, The Wheel Spins; Hitchcock used only the premise of the novel and added his own brilliant (often comedic) touches to make the story cinematically appealing for contemporary movie audiences. This approach is similar to what Hitchcock did in many of his other adaptations, including Rebecca and Suspicion, in which he changed the ending of the story or altered the presentation due to such considerations as audiences unwilling to accept stars like Laurence Olivier and Cary Grant being guilty of murder.

As for this 2013 version of The Lady Vanishes, directed by Diarmuid Lawrence, it is a straight drama, like the original novel. Although many contemporary readers may have overlooked the novel, I highly recommend it, as I do this adaptation.

The movie started out good, but digressed as it progressed. The last 10 mins seemed like the director was caught off guard by the clock and had to just button up the ending.

I don't know if this is more faithful to the original book than the famous Hitchcock version. But if it is, it shows extraordinary vision of him to have seen the material for a good movie in this boring nonsense. Wholly without humour or tension, I see it has an estimated budget of £1850. Even at that priced, the BBC was swindled. This is one of those films where it is a real strain to write the required 10 lines of comment because all one can say is it is boring. The events before the start of the train journey are truncated so we get no sense of the purpose underlying the plot. Nor is there any sexual tension in the relationships. Although too long, it feels that some key scenes necessary to understanding the role of some characters must be missing. Or maybe those characters have no role and are just there to pad out the numbers. The actors cannot be blamed for any of this. Tuppence Middleton is beautiful and makes the best of her part. Others are either competent or better, with none of the odd comic standup turns which often disfigure remakes like the ITV Marple series. So all the blame has to go to the writer, Fiona Seres and the director, Diarmuid Lawrence. And to the BBC for not throwing this in the bin rather than on to our screens. Whatever you do, do not let this tedious waste of time discourage you from finding and watching the brilliant Hitchcock original.

My God this was so awful, I barely know where to start!..This was a period piece, and yet some of the dialogue was pure 21st century 'smart-speak'. People did not feel 'empathy' in pre-war Britain (and would certainly never had admitted feeling such to strangers if they had). The scriptwriters seem to have forgotten the separate meanings and contextual uses of 'will' and 'shall', and the accents were Estuarine in the extreme. There was far too much breathless 'gushing' by our heroine (who ever thought to cast Middleton in this role anyway?.. She hasn't the screen presence nor the ability to convey any sort of emotion other than a rather hollow & supercilious haughtiness), and Tom Hughes (Max Hare) simply carried on where he left off in 'Dancing on the Edge'...The only characters with any sort of screen credulity were the Reverend and his wife, and even they had to be given a paper-thin sideplot to flesh out their presence...Rhind-Tutt was completely wasted, and even Stephanie Cole's attempts at caustic wit were cheap and shallow...Where was the menacing threat of Hitchcock's original?..The whole thing reeked of hurried, seedy amateurism...I thought the 1979 remake with Gould and Shepherd was bad, but even that production had some saving graces (remember Arthur Lowe & Ian Carmichael as the two cricket-mad Englishmen). The main question is why bother making it at all?.. A shabby remake, poorly thrown together, with a second-no, make that a third-rate cast.

It is wildly unfair to compare this The Lady Vanishes to Hitchcock's early masterwork, generally considered to be a classic. In a nutshell this is BBC ! The British now how to do a thriller with that delightful English style. The basic story is this, in both the Hitchcock version and this BBC adaptation . Iris Carr is traveling across Europe by train when she befriends Miss Froy, an elderly English woman. But when she wakes up from a few hours' sleep, Miss Froy has vanished. As fellow passengers claim the lady never existed, Iris fights to discover the fate of Miss Froy - and prove that she's not going mad. Starring Tuppence Middleton, Keeley Hawes, Julian Rhind-Tutt

The Hitchcock version is often described as a comedy-mystery, In contrast, this latest made-for-TV version is fairly serious all the way through. The underlying plot, the reason for this elaborate charade, is slightly different in the two films. Tuppence Middleton was quite good, she does a great job playing the spoilt brat and she comes unhinged rather impressively. The landscapes and cinematography in the second film are excellent . This BBC TV movie is definitely worth checking out a well made period piece just a click away on Amazon Prime.

Settled down to watch this with my in-laws (perceived good family content) and within the first 5 minutes we all realised what a massive error we had made. A solid cast list that delivered dialogue as if they were in their local am-dram society. Please avoid this like your life depends on it!

I should say that the excellent cast should in no way feel any responsibility for this flop of a remake, after all you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear. However the writer should be commended not only for the Lady Vanishing but also the iconic characters, Charters and Caldicott, on top of which they also managed to Vanish any hint of suspense. I can only assume that they had never seen the original 1938 version of the British comic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launderand. This classic starred Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave and was both critically acclaimed as a masterpiece and was a box office smash. In fact even director Anthony Pages 1979 remake, though a pale imitation of Hitchcock's original, was a far superior offering than the one served up in this adaptation.

I was almost put off watching this movie by some of the reviews here. I'm very glad I persevered.

This is one of the most nervy, energetic mystery-thrillers I have ever had the pleasure to watch. It has a fantastic cast, all of whom are at the top of their game here, and a plot which kept me on the edge of my seat until the last minute.

I think that a lot of the negative reviews here have come from Hitchcock fans who were expecting a remastering of the original. Having never seen it, I can't comment. It may be even better. Nevertheless, this stands up very well as a separate entity. Don't be put off.

The reason it's not 10 stars is that it does have a slightly slow start. It requires some small perseverance. Still, one of the best movies I've seen this year. I'm very glad I caught it.

If you want to know how to ruin a classic, then watch this horrendously bad remake. Tuppence Middleton's hysterical over acting didn't have me on the edge of my seat, like just on the edge of my nerves.

There are no words ...

Sunday night is not the time for invention or challenge or innovation, it is a time for unwinding, for enjoying the last few hours of not working before you have to return to Monday and not relaxing. As such it is the home of things like Marple, Midsummer Night Murders and other shows which provide drama but dress it up with comfortable, non-threatening color and light entertainment. This is what brings us a new version of The Lady Vanishes. It is quite a move to step up to a story that Hitchcock has already told in a manner that has stood as the version since it was made, but in reality this version is happy to focus on fitting the timeslot rather than doing something with the story.

It tells you all you need to know when the things that appear to have been worked on the hardest are the sets and the costumes – very BBC Sunday night, lots of good period costumes and everything has good quality in that regard. It has that proper English feel throughout but the problem is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be other than a rather safe, warm Sunday night slice of easy. I was looking for something in the way of humor, or maybe tension or perhaps even a playful mix of the two, but nothing of the sort ever came. The result is a rather bland and safe TV movie that offers nothing of note but presents it in a very warm and professional way with lots of nice but unmemorable people in it.

Unfortunately the least of these people is Middleton, who is in the lead role. She fails at being distressed, she fails at being playfully sexy and generally she distinguishes herself by how little of an impression she makes. The rest of the cast do little else – the Baroness and those around her are too much pantomime but without the fun and nothing ever really sparks as it should. The chemistry between Middleton and Hughes is not there at all – each do their own version of flirty but it doesn't meet in the middle.

It isn't a terrible film by any means – it does what it does and knows what its target audience wants at the time it was screened. It I hard to avoid how very bland it is – no real lows I guess, but certainly no highs or anything to recommend it for. I worried that it would fall short of the Hitchcock film of the same name – I needn't have though, because it doesn't even really try to get close. Watch it for the warm colors and nice costumes, but there isn't much else here.

This BBC remake is the definite borefest and lamest of all TLV remakes. Every character seems to be whispering talk, is flat and the main character is uncharismatic. A train wreck. The proceedings seems to be inconsequential but stodgily put together in the hope of producing a film.

I'm writing this review because I really enjoyed this remake of "The Lady Vanishes" When I looked it up on IMB it had a low rating and not very kind reviews,after watching it i wanted to let others know Its very good. British TV at its best with an excellent performance from Tuppence Middleton as the socialite Ms Carr and the wonderful Tom Hughes. The Vicar and his wife were also very convincing and very real performers. This is my favorite period in history, just before the war, the clothes are wonderful with the young people rich and glamorous seemingly having it all with there frivolous fun filled holiday in Italy, with the other hotel members frowning on there loose morals, Ms Carr the rudest of them. This is all very well set up as the train journey begins the story twists and turns with everyone playing there part so well as the suspense is building. Its a top notch remake of a great story with the best ending! Very well done by all the actors involved.