British Movies about Missing Persons

The Lady Vanishes, So Long at the Fair, Bunny Lake Is Missing

May 18, 2009

Another common thread in these three movies, along with being British and sharing similar themes, is that they all feature young women whose stories are not believed.

Motion pictures about missing persons have long been a part of movie history. Examples would include American films such as Midnight Warning (1932); Murder, My Sweet (1944); and Imagining Argentina (2004). The Australians have contributed with the atmospheric Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).

The British, too, have had their share of such movies. Here are three of the better ones, these particular ones centered around “damsels in distress.”

This was Alfred Hitchock’s next-to-last British movie before coming to Hollywood. A young woman (Lockwood) shares an European train compartment with an elderly, apparently harmless woman (Whitty). After falling asleep, the younger woman awakens to find the older one gone. When she looks for her, the train’s conductor and many of the other passengers deny that such a person was ever on board.

In fact, the only person who is willing to believe her is a frivolous musician and folk “scholar” (Redgrave), ironically, the one person on the train that she immensely dislikes, due to an earlier confrontation. Despite this, the two gradually piece the puzzle together and find themselves involved in espionage and deception that results in a climax featuring several of the earlier “deniers“ coming to the couple‘s aid.

The first part of the movie is a comedy populated with bizarre and imaginative characters, but quickly becomes a suspense thriller after the older woman disappears. Like many of Hitchcock’s “couples,” Lockwood and Redgrave do a fine job of playing off each other, particularly in their early scenes together.

An American remake starring Cybill Shepherd, Elliott Gould, and Angela Lansbury was made in 1979.

This film is set during the 1889 Paris Exposition. English siblings (Simmons and Tomlinson) have arrived to take in the fair and spend their first night in a respectable hotel. On awakening the next morning, the young woman discovers that not only has her brother disappeared, but so has his room! After reporting the disappearance to the authorities, all the hotel employees claim to the police that she had arrived the night before alone.

The police believe the hotel personnel over the girl and she finds that the only one she can turn to is a fellow Brit (Bogarde), and together they solve the mystery. The satisfying conclusion answers all the questions although, once the plot is resolved, the viewer realizes that it was all quite preposterous. However, the suspenseful storytelling is so good that it compensates for the lack of credibility.

The movie, based on an urban legend, was one of suspense master Alfred Hitchcock’s favorite movies, and was Ms Simmon’s last before coming to America. Honor Blackman in her pre-Pussy Galore days in Goldfinger has a small role.

A young, American, unwed mother (Lynley), newly arrived in London, allegedly leaves her four-year old daughter at a nursery school. When she returns a few hours later, the girl is not there and the school’s employees claim that she never was. The panic-stricken mother turns to her brother (Dullea), a journalist stationed in England, with whom she has always had a close relationship.

A police inspector (nicely played by Olivier) first believes the mother, then begins to have doubts, especially after no evidence of the girl’s existence can be found. In addition, it is discovered that the woman during much of her childhood had an imaginary playmate named Bunny. The audience is then led to believe that she is mentally unstable, if not insane, up to the final denouement.

Like the two previous movies, a suspension of belief is required of the viewer since the plot is basically improbable. However, once this is done, what is left is a fine suspense movie filled with red herrings and off-beat characters (and suspects) -- particularly Noel Coward as an obnoxious and creepy landlord, Anna Massey as a bitter and defensive teacher, and Martita Hunt as an eccentric schoolmistress.

The copyright of the article British Movies about Missing Persons in British Films is owned by John K. Davis. Permission to republish British Movies about Missing Persons in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.