Deadly Message (1979)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Deadly message |
| Original title | The Lady Vanishes |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 96 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Anthony Page |
| script | George Axelrod |
| production | Tom Sachs |
| music | Richard Hartley |
| camera | Douglas Slocombe |
| cut | Russell Lloyd |
| occupation | |
| |
Deadly Message is a 1978 British crime film by Anthony Page , a remake of the famous Hitchcock thriller A Lady Disappears from 1938. Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd played the leading roles in this Hammer Films production , which was last almost three decades . The story was based on the novel " The Wheel Spins " (1936) by Ethel Lina White .
action
Germany, on the eve of World War II. Several foreign tourists, including the Americans Robert Condon and Amanda Kelly, who attracted the attention of the German guests of a restaurant, including several in Nazi uniforms, with an over-the-top Hitler parody, the two snobbish Britons Charters and Caldicott as well as a single, slightly eccentric looking elderly lady named Mrs. Froy want to leave her Bavarian vacation spot by night train to Basel. However, they are prevented from doing so by a German officer because the train was requisitioned for the Wehrmacht. Always a little over the top and tipsy, Amanda Kelly urgently needs to return to London because she intends to get married again, while photographer Condon has just returned from Spain, where he documented the civil war. Charters and Caldicott, both of them a bit old and clichéd English through and through, are pushing it back home because they want to see a cricket game that is eminently important to them. The next morning the gentlemen leave with the arriving train.
While the sleepy Amanda stumbles into her compartment in her white evening dress from the day before, Mrs. Froy joins her. The over-excited American and the old English maid in the Mary Poppins look quickly become friends. When Amanda nodded off briefly, Mrs. Froy suddenly disappeared without a trace when she woke up. Amanda goes to the compartment where Condon is sitting, but like all the other passengers and the train attendant, who all never want to see Mrs. Froy, he doesn't take her very seriously. Mrs. Froy's luggage has also disappeared without a trace. The accompanying Dr. Egon Hart tries to help Amanda find it, but even the beyond doubt Messrs Charters and Caldicott have absolutely no memory of Mrs. Froy. Suddenly a lady appeared dressed just like Mrs. Froy. Her name is Mrs. Kummer and she claims to have taken care of Amanda before, and not that "imaginary" Mrs. Froy. Now Amanda goes completely crazy and pulls the emergency brake without further ado. When the train starts again, several compartment passengers try to overpower the notorious troublemaker Amanda.
After another incident, Robert Condon also begins to believe her. When the two of them find Mrs. Froy's glasses in the luggage compartment, they are placed by one of the German passengers, the servant of a baroness who is obviously loyal to the regime, who takes them from them again. A scuffle breaks out between him and Condon, in which Amanda takes a lively part. The opponent accidentally flies off the train. The two Americans then intensify their search for the missing lady. A high-heeled nun in one compartment attracts both of them as she is on guard over a completely bandaged patient. Could the patient Dr. Hard to care, really being Mrs. Froy? Yes, it is, and Dr. Hart, who only came under considerable political pressure to assist in the kidnapping of Mrs. Froy, finally admits it frankly. He only obeyed an order, then he pulls out a revolver and holds Amanda and Robert in their compartment. When Hart leaves again, Robert manages to get along the outer wall of the moving train into the compartment in which Mrs. Froy, bandaged to the “mummy”, is lying. The fake nun, actually Hart's wife, helps Robert to free the Englishwoman, because she loves her husband, but not the Nazi regime.
Then everything goes very quickly. The newly wrapped “mummy” is picked up by Reider's NS officer at the next train station, but he notices the exchange. In any case, it is not Mrs. Froy. Amanda, Robert and the Froy believe they are safe, but the rear wagons of their departing train have been disconnected, the train itself diverted a few kilometers and stopped on the open track by Reider. Mrs. Froy recognizes him immediately: Helmut von Reider is the eldest son of her previous employer, a high Wehrmacht officer. Reider Junior urges passengers to voluntarily surrender Mrs. Froy. When this does not happen, and Charters' attempt at mediation fails, the German soldiers fire at the train on Reider's orders. Condon fired back with his own revolver, and a little later the experienced shooter Charters also took part. During the exchange of fire, Froy brings Condon and Amanda to him and hums them a tune that their American allies should definitely remember and that should be played to a certain Mr. Calendar in London-Whitehall. This melody carries an important political message.
Mrs. Froy says she may not be a spy, as Amanda initially suspects, but that she works as a courier on behalf of Reider's father, a general who wants to prevent an impending World War II. Then the old lady disappears a second time, this time voluntarily, and bravely jumps into a river when Reider's people shoot her. When the passenger Todhunter waves the white flag, he is shot by Reider junior. Caldicot and Condon now fight their way to the engineer's cab and get the train going to escape the hail of bullets. When the train is reversed, Amanda, who jumps off, adjusts the points so that the train is back on the right track in the direction of Switzerland. When Reider tries to prevent this, he is shot down. Finally arrived in London, Robert and Amanda rush immediately to Whitehall. But when they walk in, they promptly forgot the tune they were supposed to hum to Mr. Calendar. But that doesn't matter, because you hear exactly this melody from a room that someone is playing on a piano. Amanda and Robert enter the room, and Mrs. Froy sits at the piano. All three of them hug because they are glad they made it to London safely.
Production notes
Deadly Message was filmed in 1978 in Austria ( Klagenfurt , Feistritz im Rosental , near the Karawanken ) and in Pinewood Studios in England and premiered in Great Britain in May 1979. In 1983 the film was only released on video in Germany.
Hammer Films producer Michael Carreras was one of three line managers. Wilfred Shingleton designed the film structures .
useful information
Immediately beforehand (also in 1978) the company manager of the Rank Organization, which was taking over the distribution, Tony Williams, had produced a remake of another Hitchcock classic, The 39 Steps , as financier . This film flopped, as did Deadly Message .
Reviews
The critics didn't leave a single good hair on this remake. Below are several examples:
The trade journal Variety called the film a "Mid-Atlantic mishmash with some reasonably amusing moments but without a coherent style."
The encyclopedia of British film wrote in the entry by director Anthony Page that the film "is as uncomfortable and charmless as you can think".
“Alfred Hitchcock filmed the sophisticated spy story back in 1938: A lady disappears. This television version [sic!] Is largely staged conventionally and unimaginatively and relies solely on stars. "
The Movie & Video Guide reminded that this remake of the Hitchcock classic had largely the same story, but that the film was "sabotaged by the unbearable characterization of its" screwball "stars.
Halliwell's Film Guide found that with this remake "everything went wrong" that could go wrong: "Wrong setting, wrong actors, wrong style (or lack of it)".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Variety criticism of December 31, 1978
- ^ Brian McFarlane, Anthony Slide: The encyclopedia of British film. Manchester & New York City 2013, p. 578.
- ↑ Deadly Message in the Lexicon of International Films , accessed on September 16, 2018
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 719
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 579
Web links
- Deadly message in the Internet Movie Database (English)