User Reviews

Fascinating film from Britain's Rank/Gainsborough Pictures, slyly written by Hugh Mills and Anthony Thorne, has young woman from Naples traveling with her stuffy brother to Paris in 1889 for the Exposition, only to awaken the next morning in their hotel to find her sibling strangely missing. Plot-line has since been well-trodden, and probably wasn't completely fresh in 1950, however the mechanics of the situation are engrossing due in no small part to the direction and performances. Jean Simmons, in both period dress and costume for the festivities, looks very beautiful and handles the high drama with aplomb (though perhaps giving her Vicky Barton more dialogue might have made the character even sharper). Dirk Bogarde, as a painter who met the missing man quite by chance the night he vanished, is excellent teaming up with Simmons to play detective. Stylish, enjoyable film plays fair with the audience to a large degree; a few far-fetched incidents, including a head-scratching balloon disaster, don't detract from the fun. *** from ****

Ever since Miss Froy disappeared from a central European train in Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes" the "Suddenly there - next moment not" film genre has made for sure-fire entertainment. Of all its many offshoots the one I often return to with great pleasure is the little known "So Long At The Fair" which stars a radiant Jean Simmons as a young English woman visiting the Great Paris Exhibition of 1889 with her brother (David Tomlinson) who disappears from his hotel bedroom after the first night of their stay. What is even more intriguing is that the room itself appears to have vanished. The rest of the film is almost entirely taken up with the girl's desperate search for her brother in a beautiful city that has suddenly become alien through her frightful circumstance and the lack of understanding and sympathy of most around her. Fortunately during the latter stages there is a Prince Charming to aid her quest in the form of Dirk Bogarde at his most gallant. If his reassuring presence takes away something of the film's tension, the scenes up to this point are almost unbearable as we share Jean Simmons's frustrations and watch her one lifeline to the truth she is telling come literally tumbling from the skies. Even knowledge of a most convincing denouement does not dissipate the film's many pleasures on subsequent viewings. These include Benjamin Frankel's delightfully catchy "Carriage and Pair" that actually made the "Top Ten" in its day, the beauty of Jean Simmons lovingly celebrated in a glorious closeup at the very beginning and that strange rarity for a British work of that period, a film in which the French characters actually converse with each other in their native tongue rather than resorting to "'Allo, 'Allo" speak, and this without a single subtitle. Expressions make everything abundantly clear.

Wonderful re-creation of the gai Paris of l'exposition universelle with its Eiffel Tower(which was to be destroyed after it,but they did not,certainly wisely).Superb atmosphere in "l'hotel de la licorne" where Cathleen Nesbitt impressed me with her perfect French (I thought she was French).There are probably too many people in Paris 1889 who speak English ,but Terence Fisher makes a welcome frequent use of the Victor Hugo language.

As for the story,it's an absorbing story of a gentleman who vanishes in the grand tradition of "the lady vanishes" but Jean Simmons's character,who's slowly believing she's losing her mind reminds me more of "Gaslight" (1940 and 1944).The scene with the balloon is a great moment:is -it really an accident? Who's behind all that?Spies?Thieves?Murderers?You'll be wondering during the whole movie and the ending,for once ,will not disappoint you:it's so unexpected that it's impossible to guess it .Excellent performances by the whole cast.

The writers deviated from historical fact (which is fine, it's not a documentary) to make an entertaining story of this mystery. I especially admire it for including one big, pointless plot thread simply because doing so deepens the sense of reality, and adds a bit of comedy. The thread is a sort of red herring, but it has nothing to do with solving the mystery: Honor Blackman is a young woman whose mother is nagging her to press Dirk Bogarde toward marriage. In a more formula-driven film, that would set up tension between Blackman and Jean Simmons for Bogarde's affections. Not here. Blackman and her mother disappear about midway through the movie, never to return, while Bogarde gets down to the serious business of finding Simmons' missing brother. How refreshing is that?!

I generally don't worry about spoilers-- the quality of a good film (especially a mystery) has more to do with how the plot develops than with how it ends-- but in this case, with an solution so unexpected, so ambiguous, and so realistic (compared to the similar "The Lady Vanishes," a marvelous but fanciful film), this really is a movie that must not be spoiled.

So Long at the Fair is directed by Terence Fisher and Antony Darnborough and written by Hugh Mills and Anthony Thorne. It stars Dirk Bogarde, Jean Simmons, David Tomlinson, Marcel Poncin, Felix Aylmer and Cathleen Nesbitt. Music is by Benjamin Frankel and cinematography by Reginald Wyer.

Adapted from Thorne's novel of the same name, story is set in Paris 1889 (not 1896 as some other sources strangely suggest it is) and sees Simmons as Vicky Barton, who awakes in her hotel to find that her brother, and his hotel room, are missing. With the hotel staff adamant that she checked in alone and that her brother never accompanied her, Vicky is confused and very alone. However, hope comes in the form of handsome artist George Hathaway (Bogarde), who had an exchange with Vicky's brother and therefore can vouch for his existence. But with the odds stacked against them and proof hard to find, can the pair of them uncover the truth and solve the mystery?

It seems now to be a familiar plot, but it wasn't back then and the story's origin is derived from an urban legend. What unfolds over the film's running time is a sharply told mystery that is infused with good quality drama. Simmons and Bogarde make for a very engaging couple and it's very easy to root for them as they set about their sleuthing. However, the film is split into two as regards tonal worth.

The first half is the most atmospheric as Simmons' Vicky is a stranger in a strange land, her fraught helplessness over her missing brother is enhanced by the language problems. This aspect impacts on us the viewers by there not being any sub-titles for the French speaking parts of the script. A good move is that.

Once Vicky teams up with George the thriller suspense gives way to detective mystery, which is fine, and for sure the "reveal" that comes in the finale is credible, but it's hard not to lament a touch that the pic hasn't stayed in "darker" mode, even if the score is consistently too jaunty for such a story. While the black and white photography is, however, tonally pleasing, and the Victorian costuming is authentic looking.

There's a couple of off kilter shots but noir like visuals are in short supply, and characterisations and basis of plotting do not scream out as being noir influenced, so you have to wonder why the film has found its way into a DVD collection of British Noir? It's a classy little mystery, boosted by some prime British acting talent, but first time viewers expecting a Brit film noir should heed my warning, it's not! 7/10

JEAN SIMMONS is given a striking close-up at the start of SO LONG AT THE FAIR in which she closely resembles Vivien Leigh. She's perfectly suited to playing a Victorian heroine who visits Paris with her brother (DAVID TOMLINSON) during the Paris Exposition of 1896. The opening scenes are lively and amusing before the story takes a mysterious turn when the brother is missing the morning after the pair checks into the hotel.

No one claims to have seen him. Of course, when this happens we know there has to be a reason for everyone's refusal to acknowledge the brother's existence. Simmons has attracted the attention of at least one young man (DIRK BOGARDE) who does learn that she is traveling with her brother. In fact, he learns this bit of information from the brother himself. That is the key to the scene wherein Simmons is relieved to find that someone besides herself knows that her brother is not a figment of her imagination.

Bogarde is glad to come to her rescue, since he's attracted to her at first glance. Their relationship becomes the only predictable aspect of this little mystery. What happens when he decides to do some detective work is best left unexplained, lest too much of the plot is given away.

It's the kind of ending that deserves to be kept secret.

There are a few weaknesses in motivations but overall the revelation at the end is reasonable enough to be credible. One can always wonder if the authorities at the hotel could have handled the situation a bit differently so as not to antagonize Simmons.

It's a satisfying piece of entertainment, well acted by a British cast and deserves to be better known than it is.

A type of Film Noir, the audience knowing only part of what is going on till the end of the movie. A young woman going to the Paris Expo with her brother who disappears the next morning. Not only has he vanished but so has his hotel room. We believe her story but the characters in the movie don't. What's really happening? Can't give away anymore than that.Acting of Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde terrific. Can't complain about the rest of the cast either.

Just saw the film again on cable, after writing my original comment ten years ago in 1999..Movie is still holding up as excellent with a most interesting twist at the end..I enjoyed it as much as ever... have seen it twice before.. To compare it to Hitchcock is like apples and bananas...The style of this film is totally different then a Hitchcock film---complete without any violence.

This is an unsung masterpiece. The atmosphere of the 1896 Paris Exhibition is superbly recreated. Jean Simmons is magnificent as the heroine, and Dirk Bogarde has genuine chemistry with her as an aspiring artist who is the only one who believes her. Cathleen Nesbitt is perfection itself in her role, and a young Honor Blackman scores points in an important bit part. And David Tomlinson (later George Banks of Mary Poppins fame) is memorable as Simmons' brother. The sound track and art direction are also terrific. The script is taut and the dialogue crisp. All this and perfect pacing too. I've seen this five times and still look for it whenever it is on. Most highly recommended.

By the way, another reviewer thought this was some sort of re-working of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. Aside from the fact that someone vanishes (a man), not much else relates. This is much closer to a Jeanne Crain B-movie that came out a few years later called Dangerous Crossing.

Interesting setup, which has a woman being gaslighted by hotel keepers in Paris, told that the brother she checked in with was never there when he disappears. In fact, his whole room disappears. It's straight out of Hitchcock, especially when someone who might confirm her story goes up in a hot air balloon and we can feel the tension. Unfortunately the film doesn't seem to understand how terrifying or menacing the situation would be to the woman (Jean Simmons), occasionally dropping in dopey music when we should be feeling our skin crawl, and by the middle of the film it was hard to stay fully invested. The payoff is absolutely ridiculous too, so bad that the writers should have been ashamed of themselves. Watch Hitchcock's 'The Lady Vanishes' (1938) instead.

"So Long at the Fair" manages to fuse the macabre with the swank in a singularly enjoyable nerve wracker set in 1889 Paris.

Director Terence Fisher leads his audience with aplomb from the gaiety of the Moulon Rouge to the lugubrious shadows of a convent hospital with an assurance missing from most modern thrillers.

Production values are first rate from the elegant hotel to the elaborately wrought fair sequences.

One could scarcely ask for a more debonair and attractive couple than Mr. Bogarde, (with his famous pompadour intact), and the exquisite Miss Simmons, who, in her turn provides a welcome reminder of 19th century feminine deportment. And Villainess Cathleen Nesbitt, with her cut glass diction, and rustling black bombazine, defines sinister suavity in a way you won't soon forget.

Kudos also to Honor Blackman who wears a bustle with distinction.

In this mystery thriller from Betty E. Box, producer of the exciting The Clouded Yellow, Jean Simmons and her brother David Tomlinson travel to Paris on vacation. It takes place in the 1800s, back before folks were allowed to walk up the Eiffel Tower, so it would have been highly unusual and improper for a young woman to travel alone. They check into a bustling hotel, and in the commotion, David forgets to sign the register, leaving Jean to sign it alone. They unpack, go to dinner, and then retire to their separate rooms for the night.

The next morning, Jean goes across the hall to wake her brother, but his room has disappeared. Literally, there's nothing but wallpaper in its place. The hotel proprietress claims Jean checked in alone, and none of the staff remember her brother's existence. Dumb dumb dumb. . .

So Long at the Fair is a very entertaining mystery that will keep you tense until the end. It has a very British feel to it, because besides Jean Simmons, everyone keeps a stiff upper lip despite the very strange situation. Jean Simmons does a very good job as an innocent girl trying to take matters into her own hands for the first time, and joining the supporting cast is Dirk Bogarde, Honor Blackman, and Cathleen Nesbitt. Pick this one up when you're in the mood for a Hitchcock-esque film minus the psychosis and adding in beautiful dresses.

"So Long at the Fair" is a pleasant film with Hitchcockian dimensions--a psychological mystery that turns into a detective story.

A young Englishwoman, Vicky Barton (Jean Simmons), and her brother Johnny (David Tomlinson) travel to Paris for the Exposition of 1889. She is excited to experience the fair--with its new wonder, the Eiffel Tower--but her joy turns to panic when she discovers that her brother is missing and there is no trace of him. A young artist named George Hathaway (Dirk Bogarde) becomes an ally in her quest to prove that Johnny is actually missing.

Ms. Simmons performance is charming and convincing, reminding me of Audrey Hepburn in "Wait Until Dark". Mr. Bogarde plays the handsome, helpful stranger very well, and the two of them work well together.

Though this film may not pack the punch of a film like "Rear Window", it is enjoyable, primarily due to the story (taken from a novel) and the chemistry between the actors.

One night in 1889 a young Englishman named Johnny Barton mysteriously vanishes from his hotel room in Paris, where he has travelled with his sister Vicky to see the Exposition Universelle. And it's not just Johnny who vanishes. His hotel room, No. 19, appears to have vanished as well, with just a blank wall where it used to be. When a distraught Vicky questions the hotel management she is told that they have never heard of a person named Johnny Barton and that Vicky arrived at the hotel alone; as evidence they show her the hotel register, which contains Vicky's signature but not Johnny's.

In desperation Vicky, who believes that her brother must have been either murdered or kidnapped, goes to see first the British consul and then the police. They are sympathetic, but warn Vicky that they cannot investigate until she has some hard evidence to back up her story. The hotel proprietors hint that Vicky is either mad or has invented a story about her brother to avoid paying her hotel bill. Her luck turns when she meets an English painter named George Hathaway who remembers speaking to Johnny, who lent him 50 francs to pay a cab fare, in the hotel bar the previous evening. George resolves to help Vicky solve the mystery.

I remember reading in a magazine once that this film was based upon a true story, but the truth appears to be that it was never more than a 19th-century urban legend. There have been several other treatments of the legend in film and fiction, but in most of these it is the young woman's mother rather than her brother who disappears. The best-known treatment is probably Alfred Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes", although Hitchcock makes some important changes to the story. In his version the older woman and the younger one are not mother and daughter, the action takes place not in a Parisian hotel but on board a train passing through an unnamed country and the final solution to the mystery is very different. Hitchcock's aim was to alert the British public to the dangers of Nazism, even if for political reasons Germany could not be explicitly named. In the same year, 1938 the Germans produced their own, much more traditional, film of the legend under the title "Verwehte Spuren" ("Vanished Tracks").

"So Long at the Fair", in fact, is a thriller with a lot in common with Hitchcock's work. The reviewer who said that it was not violent enough for Hitch was wide of the mark- by no means all of Hitchcock's films contain explicit violence. The Master might have made a few changes to the story- he would probably have had Vicky played by a blonde rather than the brunette Jean Simmons and would probably have written out George's girlfriend Rhoda in order to introduce a romance between George and Vicky. He might also have updated the action to the present day, as period drama was never his forte. ("Under Capricorn" is not one of his best films, and "Jamaica Inn" one of his worst).

Nevertheless, the atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion and the theme of a young woman trying to prove her own sanity and to uncover what she believes to be a sinister conspiracy both seem very Hitchcockian. The "balloon" scene when Vicky and the consul go in search of a waitress who might be able to prove her story is a classic piece of suspense. The luminously beautiful Simmons is wonderful as Vicky, and she receives good support from Dirk Bogarde as the resolute and chivalrous George and from Cathleen Nesbitt as the plausible but sinister hotel owner Madame Hervé. Even after Hitchcock departed these shores for Hollywood, something of his spirit remained in Britain. 7/10

So Long At The Fair is actually more frightening than The Lady Vanishes was. Margaret Lockwood had known her Miss Froy for a day, maybe she HAD hallucinated her...but there is no way that Jean Simmons could hallucinate her own brother, her only relation in the world! Stuck in France, not able to speak much French, and all alone, hers is a desperate search. Though the movie ends too abruptly, overall it was brilliant, and a must-see.

"So Long at the Fair" is one of my favorite films. It combines mystery and suspense, my favorite genres, with two of my favorite stars, Jean Simmons and Dirk Bogarde, both quite young and beautiful here.

Simmons is a young woman, Victoria Barton, who accompanies her brother, Johnny Barton (David Tomlinson), to Paris for what appears to be the 1889 Expo. The morning after they arrive at their hotel, not only has Victoria's brother disappeared, but so has his hotel room. Everyone claims that she arrived alone. She eventually discovers that a handsome artist (Bogarde) borrowed money from Johnny the night of their arrival, and he works with her to find proof that her brother existed and that his existence, for some reason, is being covered up by the hotel.

As others have mentioned, variations of this story have been told before - "The Lady Vanishes," "Dangerous Crossing," and even "Gaslight," but the denouement of each of these stories is different from one another and from "So Long at the Fair," so one can enjoy all of the films.

Bogarde and Simmons make a stunning couple, and the film has many nice touches - the hot air balloon scene and the part that takes place during the masked ball being two. Honor Blackman is a woman interested in the Bogarde character, and Felix Aylmer is the British consulate.

Based on a true story, "So Long at the Fair" is a wonderful, intriguing film that's not to be missed.

I've never been able to get into this particular drama which many, including folks here, compare to Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes. I've never quite figured out why it was necessary to gaslight Jean Simmons the way she was. Maybe if I lived on the continent and had some insight into English and French antagonisms, that might give me a clue.

So Long At The Fair takes place in the Paris Exhibition of 1896 and in that peaceful century between Vienna and Versailles when Europe was generally at peace, though the antagonisms were beneath the surface. Brother and sister Jean Simmons and David Tomlinson arrive in Paris and stay at a small hotel run by Cathleen Nesbitt. The two of them check into separate rooms. He complains of feeling fatigued and Jean goes out on the town for a little celebration. The next day not only has he vanished, but so has his room which Nesbitt now claims was just a public bathroom and that she arrived alone. Nesbitt's never even heard of David Tomlinson.

Simmons is stonewalled at every turn and she gives a wonderful portrayal of a lovely young girl who is slowly being driven out of her mind. But I seriously can't get into this film. Remember in The Lady Vanishes, Margaret Lockwood makes an acquaintance of Dame May Witty as a couple of perfect strangers who fall into each other's company on a train. She's not a family member so when Witty disappears it's plausible when authorities doubt Lockwood. Here Cathleen Nesbitt has the effrontery to tell her that her own brother doesn't exist and the authorities back her up.

Like Margaret Lockwood, Simmons finds one friend in itinerant artist Dirk Bogarde an English expatriate living in the Paris of Toulouse-Lautrec. Bogarde vaguely does remember meeting her with Tomlinson and of course he decides to help this very frightened young woman.

I will say though that the nature of the disappearance would have required the authorities to tell Simmons as Tomlinson's closest blood relation. Why they went through this charade I can only attribute to the French way of doing things which is not terribly flattering to the French.

The film belongs to Jean Simmons who when you look at her list of credits you'll find she was in the cast of some of the best films of the Fifties and criminally never received an Oscar for anything. She gets good support from the rest of the cast, but for me it's just a film that makes no rational sense to this American.