In an overcrowded hotel, many travellers await a train to their destination. Among them is Miss Froy - a school mistress, Robert Condon, a photographer for Life magazine and Amanda Kelly, a socialite on her way to meet her fiancée. When Amanda gets a knock on her head on the train, Miss Froy looks after her. She falls asleep for a while and wakes up to find Miss Froy gone. When she enquires, no one else can remember any such woman being on the train did she imagine it or is something more sinister afoot?
Of course it isn't rubbish but no matter how "OK" this film it, it simply isn't comparable to the much, much better Hitchcock original sadly a statement that I consider true of all aspects of the film. The plot is held as in the original but for this story to work the delivery needs to be good. Hitchcock did it well producing a pacy and enjoyable film that was light but engaging at the same time. Here the film isn't too much longer than the original but my gosh it drags by comparison. The lack of tension was a real surprise to me and the film failed to draw out the mystery of course I knew it was not in Amanda's head but I do when I watch the original as well this familiarity doesn't totally account for the lack of tension in the film generally, that is more to do with the lack of urgency and the starry feel of the film generally. Filmed in lush colours and a postcard presentation of Europe the film looks professional but the brightness undercuts the tension yet again. Page generally doesn't do much with the direction to help the material or cast out it all looks OK but doesn't do that much. Viewers who have not seen the original might enjoy it but anyone coming to it second will struggle to find much added value in this retread.
Gould and Shepherd both overegg their performances and lean too heavily on the side of humour without doing enough on the side of the mystery. Of course neither of them are helped by their lack of chemistry with one another. There is no spark at all and they generally just bluster around each other. Lansbury is OK as the lady of the title but you can't help feel that she's doesn't really deserve to share the same role as the much better Witty. Lowe and Charmichael dominate with a rerun of the amusing English clichés from the original although Lom is worth a look. The rest of the cast however, just fill in the background without too much effort or style.
Overall this is a distracting and OK film in its own right but I simply cannot see any reason why any viewer would find this a more worthwhile venture than the original. In every way, from direction and tone through to performances and cinematography, the film is a poor photocopy of the original. If you haven't seen it then you should be watching that; if you have seen it then I don't understand why beyond a morbid sense of curiosity, you'd want to watch this remake.
