So Long at the Fair [DVD][1950]

This Spanish DVD is a reasonably good transfer of a wonderful movie which really does deserve the sort of treatment Warners or Criterion in the States gives vintage movies. The picture quality is fairly decent -- but it does call out for some quality restoration.
The tale is based on a true event at the time of the 19th Century Great Exhibition in Paris. Jean Simmons attends the World Fair with her brother, played by David Tomlinson. After a night on the town, they retire to their little hotel, to their separate rooms. Comes the morning -- no brother. He has disappeared. Even more bizarre, so has his room And no-one will believe that either he or his room were there. The lady must be mad.
Enter Dirk Bogarde playing the romantic lead in a fun fey way. He's very languid and high-camp, as if he doesn't quite believe his role -- his slight air of alienation somehow aids rather than detracts from the movie.
This is a little mid-Century British gem and until a better transfer comes along, this will do quite nicely.

Anthony Thorne's droll romance, first published in 1947, took wing on an alleged real-life incident that had become legend, providing a wealth of fictional variation on page and screen. Two English women, an older and a younger, travelling abroad in the 19th century were sundered when the older, taken ill, disappeared off the face of the earth, her very identity refuted by those around the couple and the mystery, in some accounts, never solved. In Thorne they're a young brother-and-sister Vicky and Johnny, visiting Paris for the Great Exhibition of 1889 which introduced the Eiffel Tower to the world and overall cost the city a fortune to mount (a significant factor in what follows). Johnny, feeling unwell, disappears overnight and so does his hotel-room, management and staff firmly insisting that mam'zelle arrived alone. They try to intimidate Vicky when she refuses to conveniently disappear herself and she turns for help, other avenues having failed her, to George a young artist who'd borrowed money from Johnny. He's finally instrumental in cracking open the mystery and bringing future happiness to Vicky on his own account. Thorne throughout clothes his tale in richly atmospheric period-detail and humorous observation of characteristics national and international.
Screenwise Hitch would have had a field-day with all this but he'd already travelled this route by train, of course, in the dear old days with Gainsborough. By the time the same company was bringing Thorne to the movies in 1949 Hitch was a VIP from Hollywood, filming in Britain under its aegis. Gainsborough's new production could certainly have done with his unique spark and his piercing intimacy. Terence Fisher's film is competent and charming but Vicky's initial alarm seems rushed and afterwards we settle in to a fairly low-key progression of events. A certain edge has been softened in transition. Johnny is boorish and irascible in the book but amiable and fond in the film (as played by David Tomlinson). The hotel-management, an old woman, her daughter and oily son-in-law become a potentially threatening trinity in the original but in the film are reduced to another brother-and-sister (interestingly), elderly and stubborn and a little pathetic. The movie's big plus lies in its star-team, Bonnie Jean in her damsel-in-distress period and Dirk Bogarde in his first sympathetic lead, they're great together. George is an American in the book but English here and their native decorum when posing as lovers to occupy another room in the hotel is amusingly counterpointed by the ooh-la-la assumptions of the old manager. The final revealing of Johnny's fate is stretched about as far as it will go and ends on a tentative note (at least we're spared that dreaded line "He's going to be all right")and Vicky exits with the new man in her life.
There's the odd corny moment - the ancient joke about looking at a picture upside-down - and one fainting-spell too many perhaps near the finish. But there's also Honor Blackman as George's hopeful lady-friend though her role in the story is reduced to practically nothing here before being closed-off altogether. Fellow Bond-girl Zena Marshall meets a more tragic demise as the little chambermaid, a potential witness for Vicky, who dies when an ascent by balloon goes horribly wrong. Benjamin Frankel's score provides L'Expo-pomp and traveller-dreaming and also introduces a lovely theme "Carriage and Pair" which became popular in its own right while working somewhat against the mood of the moment (let's forget Johnny for a spell and go for a clip-clop.) Sunny Paris by day, naughty Paris by night though it's all quite circumspect. La Goulue, the famous courtesan from the Moulin Rouge, is a character in the book but safely absent here. Wonder if Hitch liked it.

With an old film like this does it really matter if the picture is not perfection, as so many people want these days. It`s a very good transfer in my opinion, just the fussy who think not. The film of course is excellent with great performances from Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde.