Remakes are always a tricky business because there's a need for the remake to be better than the original or at least the same quality as the original to gain critical acclaim. The Lady Vanishes from 1938 is re-made again this time on a slower pace than the Alfred Hitchcock version of the 30s.
Mike Hale of the New York Times saw the TV drama and noted, "Now, unfortunately, come the comparisons. This new "Lady Vanishes," directed by Diarmuid Lawrence ("South Riding") from a screenplay by Fiona Seres, is a perfectly adequate television mystery of the week. But it forgoes the crackling pace, light touch and surprisingly sophisticated sexual banter of the original, opting for melancholy, ominousness and sentimentality. It's about five minutes shorter than the Hitchcock, but its deliberate pace makes it seem longer. Watching the two in succession is like transferring from the express to a particularly poky, poorly ventilated local."
Criticisms aside, The Lady Vanishes' performance as a TV drama is yet to be seen. The British comic thriller originally starred Margaret Lockwood, Paul Lukas, Dame May Whitty, and Michael Redgrave. The screenplay was written by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat basing it on the 1936 Ethel Lina White novel titled "The Wheel Spinsby". The story is about a beautiful English woman traveling in Europe by train. The tourist then discovers that her traveling companion has gone missing. As she looks for her elderly companion, fellow passengers of the train tell her they haven't seen the elderly lady. She is then helped by another person in the train in search for clues on the old lady's vanishing act. The film also features two characters rushing back to the British Isles to see the cricket test match.
The Lady Vanishes is described as Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film the director made in the UK before he finally moved to America. A remake of the film was made in 1979 and many more followed after that.
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