FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

blanche-2 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.

Leofwine_draca 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.

paul-curtis1956 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.

blakedw 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.