Ever-useful Wikipedia entry on Caldicott and Charters:
"In 'The Lady Vanishes,' the pair are hilariously singleminded cricket fans, rushing back to England to see the last days of a test match. They proved so popular with audiences that they recurred in the Gilliat-and-Launder films 'Night Train to Munich' (1940, also starring Margaret Lockwood) and 'Millions Like Us' (1943), and in the BBC radio serials 'Crook's Tour' (1941, made into a film later that year) and 'Secret Mission 609' (1942).
Do you suppose the filmmakers anticipated the pair's reception and thus left in so many scenes with them at the beginning of the movie? Because the lagging start easily could have been fixed by taking out the recurring scenes where they share a room with the maid. Erin said earlier that "LV" was like watching three distinct movies, so maybe stock insular Englishmen were a better fit for a different kind of film. Consider the comparative setup for the illicit lovers -- their backstory was set up quickly and effectively before the story went back to the lead developments.
10 comments:
I liked the Englishmen! I loved the scene where they were in bed together! Hehe. And the one dude is shirtless and the other pantless.
They were very entertaining, but I also saw in their single-mindedness, in their insistence on their invincible "Britishness," in their disinterest and lack of curiosity in the culture around them, in their willingness to overlook things that inconvenienced them a certain commentary perhaps on Britain's place in the world as a colonial power.
I agree with Kc. At first it is a bit odd to find that they are only supporting characters since they are at the center during the start. But their symbolic role as a distracted, complacent Britain in an increasing dangerous world helped give the film some much needed context.
I thought they were great but totally out of place in the movie. They had the paradoxical effect of being an enjoyable part of the movie that made the movie less enjoyable.
I enjoyed them. I laughed several times at their typical Englishness. I do think the filmmakers must have had some sense of their popularity because, as you say, many of their scenes in the beginning could have been removed without a big loss to the film.
On the NPR show “Talk of the Nation” today, Bill Littlefield read a poem from the spring of 2003 that is in his book “Only a Game”. In the poem he muses on how wonderful it would be to hang out in the warm sunny South during spring training with nothing more pressing to debate than the new guy in left field. Then he contrasts these idle delights with the preparations for war, reminds us that W used to own the Texas Rangers, points out that only a madman would trade baseball for war, and concludes with the wish that Bush still owned the team.
That's excellent, DW. Didn't Bush essentially bankrupt every business he owned (and/or relied on huge bailouts)? At the same opposing "government handouts" for poor women? "Fiscal conservatism" indeed.
Hmm. That’s about right. I just read an article that quoted Bush and Rice crowing about all the great new freedoms that women will have under the new Iraq government. Then the article had a look at the real world where women had lived under the most progressive laws in the Arab world until the invasion. Now they cannot even drive cars. Too bad we cannot lock Bush up in “Second Life” and let him do his destruction there.
Here's a resume for Bush.
It's not too off topic because he apparently made a movie.
Hmm.
We should watch that movie.
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