THE LADY VANISHES (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938)

With one more film to go before he moved from England to the States, Alfred Hitchcock made The Lady Vanishes, winning the directorial prize of the New York critics. If anything, this superlative entertainment is even more highly regarded today than it was in 1938.
     On a trans-European train headed to London, Miss Froy, a “governess, you know” (May Whitty, delightful), boards in Mandrika—think Switzerland—and disappears. Iris, also headed to London, in her case to marry, has befriended Miss Froy; but now everyone insists no such person as Miss Froy ever boarded the train. The bespectacled lady in oatmeal tweeds—did Iris “hallucinate” her after getting that bump on the head?
     Gilbert (Michael Redgrave, light, charming), smitten, helps Iris try to locate Miss Froy on the train, and Czech brain surgeon Hartz (Paul Lukas, urbane, concentrated, philosophical—brilliant) at least appears to help. But a good many things here, as well as people, are not what they seem; false identities, passengers hiding behind masks of one sort or another, abound.
     I have a theory about this film: one final false identity; one final deception. I think we see Miss Froy shot down as she tries to escape the baddies, hoping to bring to the British foreign service the lilting tune that contains—“in code, of course”—the pact to which two nations have secretly agreed. In London, however, is that Miss Froy we see and hear at the piano playing that tune, or something like it? Or has she been replaced with a surgically honed lookalike? I don’t say that Ethel Lina White’s story, or Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder’s adaptation, contains any such ambiguity; but might not that devil Hitchcock have slipped it in to complete a warning and a motif?

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RUDY (David Anspaugh, 1993)

Daniel E. “Rudy” Ruettiger grew up in Joliet, Illinois, where he eventually joined his father as a laborer at the Joliet Iron and Steel Works. From childhood on, Rudy dreamed of playing football for the University of Notre Dame, but he was small and only borderline athletic, and an undiagnosed mild case of dyslexia helped keep his school grades low no matter how hard he tried. However, taking a circuitous, backdoor route and persevering, Rudy made it, and the one time he “dressed up” for the team—that is, played—led to a stunning conclusion to a 1975 game, with his teammates carrying him off the field in victory. Indeed, these other players had been instrumental in pressuring the coach to let him play.
     Written by Angelo Pizzo and directed by David Anspaugh, the same team responsible for Hoosiers (1986), Rudy lends its “true story”—the actual Ruettiger campaigned hard to get this film made—a slightly fabulous style. Many love the film, even those who point to its sports-film clichés. Like Breaking Away (Peter Yates, 1979), it is all about redemption.
     The key to grasping its theme comes in a father-son discussion. (Ned Beatty and Sean Astin play these characters beautifully.) Dad Daniel doesn’t want his son to pursue his pipedream, because pursuing such a dream broke Dad Daniel’s own immigrant father, casting a pall on him and at least one of Rudy’s older brothers. Dad Daniel is fearful and wants to spare Rudy tremendous disappointment and pain. Steeped in Roman Catholic faith and ideas, however (the Ruettigers are a devout Roman Catholic family), Rudy’s achievement of his dream, through hard work, “heart”—translation: faith—and prayer, might undo the family “curse.” Indeed, Rudy’s hard-won success “redeems” not just his family, as we see, but many other individuals besides, including the ironically nicknamed groundskeeper Fortune (Charles S. Dutton, giving the best performance), as well as Coach Ara Parseghian’s cynical replacement. A seemingly irrelevant shot of birds in flight intimates the presence of the Holy Ghost that radiates throughout disparate lives as a result of the path that Rudy takes, and—despite the film’s gratuitous foul language—helps the film become a fine celebration of Roman Catholic earthly commitment and eternal mystery.

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MY BOOK, A Short Chronology of World Cinema, IS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FROM THE SANDS FILMS CINEMA CLUB IN LONDON. USING EITHER OF THE LINKS BELOW, ACCESS THE ADVERTISEMENT FOR THIS BOOK, FROM WHICH YOU CAN ORDER ONE OR MORE COPIES OF IT. THANKS.

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