Customer Reviews
FABULOUS 1930s CLASSIC! - By: FAMOUS NAME, 08 Sep 2008 
One of the greatest movies from the 1930s!
Margaret Lockwood stars as a passenger on a train who is befriended by an elderly lady (Dame May Whitty) after receiving a bang on the head. The plot thickens when Miss Froy (Whitty) goes missing, but no one on the train will admit to ever having seen her.
Lots of suspensein this, & not a boring moment! This can be watched over & over & still remains as fresh as the day it was made! This classic suspense movie will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time! Includes a galaxy of stars, with some outstanding performances - particularly those of Catherine Lacey (the nun), Linden Travers, Dame May Whtty & of course Lockwood herself.
Also stars a young Googie Withers.
Fabulous!
A classic by any definition - By: IWFIcon, 16 Aug 2008 Many films since have tried to make hay out of a similar concept, just how can a woman go missing from a moving train without anyone seemingly having seen her, but none have ever made for a movie quite as good as this genuine classic from 1938.
Of course the audience knows that Miss Foy, a delightful turn from Dame May Whitty, was on the train & we soon learn the reasons why the other passengers don't believe, or won't back up, Iris Henderson (another great turn from Margaret Lockwood) when she insists that the old woman has, well, vanished. Two bumbling Englishmen don't want to miss the test cricket, a lawyer doesn't get involved because he'sin the middle of an illicit romantic affair.
When it was remadein 1979, badly, the action almost immediately cut to everyone meeting on the train; here almost 20 minutes elapses before we get to that point & the time invested at the beginningin this filling out of the story pays off superbly when the crunch comes further down the line giving the viewer a greater, & more logical, insight into the intimacy that has developed between the characters.
Margaret Lockwood & Michael Redgrave share a flirtatious rapport & the humourin the film is charmingin the extreme. Throwin a little pre-war propaganda (although on this note, its interesting to watch the bumbling Englishmen of Charters & Coldicutt) & you have an admittedly light concoction, but one that is perfectly assembled. And as numerous subsequent attempts along the same lines have proved, it's impossible to improve on perfection.
