"The Lady Vanishes" vs. "Night Train to Munich"

Thanks for responding, guys!

First of all, I just want to emphasize that I think The Lady Vanishes is a great little movie. It's a great deal of fun. But I came to Night Train to Munich with no expectations and was pleasantly surprised--I thought it cleverer, wittier, and more fast-moving. Hitchcock did an admirable job on Lady, but it was his last picture before Selznick picked him up and he headed to America, and I think it shows. (He also had nothing to do with the script or the concepts, unlike the majority of his films, at least according to Donald Spoto's The Art of Alfred Hitchcock.)

spiderwort
Thanks for your response! Always nice hearing from you. I do recommend Night Train, especially if you enjoy Lady as I did.

telegonus
I don't believe you're stretching with your analysis; to the contrary, it does seem to be heralded just as you describe in many sources I've read, at least. I suppose I simply find Night Train the better picture on a cinematic level: a little more fast-paced, a little funnier, a little more well-acted. Reed relies on his script far more than Hitch--which is not always a good thing, I hasten to add, but in this case, with such admirable and cinematic screenwriters as Gilliat and Launder, it works to Night Train's advantage, I think.

wmcclain
Great reviews, as usual. I agree about Night Train's comedy taking a little longer to get going, but I think that, once it does start, it is also funnier and more fast-paced, akin to Lubitsch's direction of To Be or Not to Be.

Richard Kimble  (and telegonus )
I wonder if the answer may be as simple as a personality clash. If you look at Harrison's best film performances, they're with directors (Carol Reed, George Cukor, especially Joseph Mankiewicz) who are less tyrants and more constitutional monarchs on set, and Harrison had a very strong, influential personality. Hitch also had a strong, influential personality and was a tyrant on set, therefore creating and/or shaping his actors' and characters' their personalities (vide his arguments on-set with Paul Newman--and with Bernard Herrmann!--for Torn Curtain). By the way, for Sleuth, I always wondered if Olivier based his performance as Wyke on Harrison's very similar performance in Mankiewicz's The Honey Pot. The performances are remarkable in their similarities.

Hm, haven't seen Unfaithfully Yours. (I know, I know, and Sturges is one of my favorite writer-directors, too!) But I think Olivier was definitely borrowing, at least in part, from The Honey Pot (which has some other similarities with Sleuth, particularly in plotting, as well). 

I haven't seen the Angela Lansbury version, tarathian123, but I agree with you about loving Night Train. I don't dislike Lady Vanishes at all, far from it, but I knew nothing about Night Train going in, and it was a very pleasant surprise--and, I think, slightly superior.

teleadm, thanks for pointing that out! Whew, yes, I should have known that, was obviously typing too fast (as usual, eh, BATouttaheck? ). Still, I suppose, the point remains the same: according to Donald Spoto's book, at least, Hitch wasn't particularly interested in Lady (or in Jamaica Inn, for that matter). He came to the former, if I'm not mistaken, when everything had been completed except the actual filming, a situation far removed from his preferred method, in which he micromanaged the pre-production.