The Lady Vanishes (1979 film)
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| The Lady Vanishes | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Anthony Page |
| Produced by | Tom Sachs |
| Written by | George Axelrod (adaptor) |
| Starring | Elliott Gould Cybill Shepherd Angela Lansbury Herbert Lom Arthur Lowe Ian Carmichael |
| Release date(s) | 1979 |
| Running time | 97 minutes (US) / 95 minutes (UK) |
| Country | America and UK |
| Language | English |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
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The Lady Vanishes is a 1979 remake of a 1938 film of the same name. It was directed by Anthony Page and adapted by George Axelrod. It starred Elliott Gould as Robert (Gilbert), Cybill Shepherd as Amanda (Iris), Angela Lansbury as Miss Froy, Herbert Lom, Arthur Lowe and Ian Carmichael.
[edit] Synopsis
In Germany, a motley group of foreigners eager to get back to England is delayed by an avalanche blocking the railway tracks. Among the passengers are Robert; Amanda; and Miss Froy, an elderly lady who has worked some years abroad as a governess.
When the train resumes its journey, Amanda and Miss Froy strike up a conversation, while the remaining passengers in the compartment appear not to understand a word of English. Amanda lapses into unconsciousness (the result of an earlier encounter with a falling flowerpot meant for Miss Froy). When she reawakens, the governess has vanished. Amanda is shocked to learn that the other passengers claim Miss Froy never existed. Even the other English travellers deny ever seeing her, for their own reasons.
Everyone, including a foreign doctor, declares that she must be hallucinating due to her accident. Unconvinced, Amanda starts to investigate, joined only by a skeptical Robert, with whom she eventually falls in love. They discover that Miss Froy is being held prisoner in a sealed-off compartment supposedly occupied by a seriously ill patient being transported to an operation. They manage to free Miss Froy, but the train is diverted to a side track, where a shootout ensues. Miss Froy intimates to Robert and Amanda that she is in fact a British spy assigned to deliver some vital information to the Foreign Office in London; after entrusting her message, encoded in a folk song, to Robert, she flees under cover of the shootout.
After managing to restart the train and escape, Robert and Amanda return to London with the message. At the Foreign Office, Robert, driven to joyful distraction when Amanda accepts his marriage proposal, forgets the tune. Fortunately, Miss Froy has also made good her escape and has already completed her task herself.
[edit] Differences to the original
The setting of the remake is essentially similar to the earlier film, but:
- it is set in the same timeframe as the original (the months immediately before the Second World War) but is openly set in Germany rather than in the fictional Alpine county of the original.
- the train journey is this time through the Bavarian country towards the Swiss border. Most of the passengers make it safely into Switzerland, after a shootout with their Nazi pursuers.
- both leads have their nationality changed from English to American
- the female lead's name is changed from Iris to Amanda. She is still a rich woman, but here she is not an engaged Englishwoman but a much-married (but now divorced) American heiress to a large fortune.
- the male lead's name is also changed from Gilbert to Robert, and his occupation changed from musicologist to photographer and journalist.
- Miss Froy is still a secret agent, who has been living as a governess to a rich and influential family, but this time the family is German.
- Overall, the film is played as more like a screwball comedy than the comedy thriller approach of the original.
- Unlike the 1938 version Amanda's "halucinations" are the product of a fall from a table top during an ill received Hitler impression combined with a hang over from the previous night.
- Also in the remake Miss Froy does not confess to being a spy (as in the 1938 version) she is infact a Governess returning home in the face of a looming war who was entrusted with the tune from her anti-Nazi employer General Von Rieder.
[edit] Trivia
- Though Cybill Shepherd only wears one costume in the movie, (a bias-cut white satin dress), the costume department made nine identical copies to facilitate filming.
