Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938)
I recently screened a print of Carol Reed's Night Train to Munich (1940), which was scripted by the team of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, whose wonderful adaptation of Ethel Lina White's The Wheel Spins became Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, the most successful of the director's films made in England. There are many similarities between these two works, and one of the delightful surprises of Night Train to Munich is the appearance of Caldicott and Charters, with Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford reprising their roles from Hitchcock’s film. Radford and Wayne went on to make six more films together, notably Dead of Night, Quartet, and Passport to Pimlico.
In the following scene, which was cut from The Lady Vanishes, Caldicott and Charters have a run-in with Mr. Todhunter, whose main concern is that he is not recognized while abroad with a lady not his wife.
13. (CONTD)
He looks round, and, standing quite near him is a very English look ing man, CAMERA PANS to include him, as Charters says –
CHARTERS: D’you happen to know sir, what time the train leaves Basle for England?
The man looks at him blankly and replies in German.
ENGLISH-LOOKING MAN: Ich kenn kein Englisch.
CHARTERS: Oh...... Really?
He awkwardly backs from him, and turning to Caldicott, says
CHARTERS: Fellow doesn’t speak English.
Caldicott takes a look round and speaks in a superior tone......
CALDICOTT: Leave it to me, Charters.
He exits picture.
14. S.C.S.
Standing a little away from the crowd, but near the desk, are the smart Mr. and Mrs. Todhunter. Caldicott comes into picture and addressing Mr. Todhunter, says haltingly.
CALDICOTT: (raising hat) Bon soir. Voulez vous dites moi quelle heure le train departez gare du Basle pour Londres, s’il vous plait?
TODHUNTER: (equally rapidly) Je regrette, mais je ne peu, pas vous dire a quelle heure les trains partent (gesturing towards desk) Mais, sans doute le patron....
Caldicott looks at him open-mouthed for a moment, then vaguely replies.
CALDICOTT: Merci beaucoup. (raising hat) Er – Bon soir.
Todhunter turns away as Caldicott exits picture.
15. S.C.S
Caldicott comes into picture with Charters again and coughs importantly
CALDICOTT: Les Francais – toujours la politesse.
CHARTERS: What’s that?
CALDICOTT: The French – always so polite.
CHARTERS: Yes, but what did he say?
Caldicott looks a trifle abashed and shrugs.
CALDICOTT: Some sort of patois, old man. Basque, I should say. French equivalent of Scotch.
16. S.C.S.
Todhunter, with his back still towards the Englishmen, Mrs. Todhunter taking a cigarette from her bag. Mr. Todhunter hands her a lighter.
MRS. TODHUNTER: Did you have to reply in French? He’s got Empire Produce stamped all over him.
TODHUNTER: The man spoke French to me. Why run unnecessary risks?
Mrs. Todhunter watches him for a second then cuttingly adds:
MRS. TODHUNTER: I suggest you take to dark glasses and a limp, Eric. I’m sure you’d feel much safer.
Basil Radford also appeared in Hitchcock’s Young and Innocent and made a brief appearance in Jamaica Inn. Naunton Wayne however never had another occasion to work for Hitchcock, although in 1959, when the director was preparing No Bail for the Judge at Paramount, Wayne’s agent did approach Hitchcock about a role in his upcoming production. Hitchcock responded saying that he’d love to have Naunton Wayne in a film again. Had No Bail for the Judge been made, and had Basil Radford not died seven years earlier of a heart attack, it might have been wonderful to see Caldicott and Charters once again in a Hitchcock film, this time as a pair of ex-military officers engaged by Anthony Low (to have been played by Laurence Harvey) to obtain information that might exonerate a judge wrongly accused of murdering a prostitute named Flossie French. Sadly, neither the reteaming nor the film were to be.
