We rate Michael Redgrave for the unease he finds in reserved men, but his comic alertness matters just as much. His precision can feel chilly; The Lady Vanishes gives it warmth and something useful to do.
Fi1m perspective
In The Lady Vanishes (1938), Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood keep looking for Miss Froy while making room for comedy. Their exchanges never suggest that finding her is somebody else’s problem. As Gilbert Redman, Redgrave helps make the search easy to follow, even when Alfred Hitchcock’s plotting becomes fussy. We enjoyed his company because the humour stayed part of the task, rather than interrupting it for a display of charm.
Lockwood supplies the determination as Iris Matilda Henderson, and Redgrave works with that urgency rather than trying to replace it with his own. This is an appealing leading man who remains interested in what the other performer is doing. Their partnership lets the audience relax a little without allowing the mystery to go slack. For an actor whose precision could seem chilly, it is persuasive evidence that warmth need not involve much fuss.
That film debut established him as a leading man, but troubled and repressed characters became a recurring part of his screen work. Dead of Night (1945) gave him Maxwell Frere, a ventriloquist, and the opportunity to turn inner disturbance into mounting terror. In The Browning Version (1951), his Andrew Crocker-Harris is a repressed classics master: the restraint is essential to what makes the performance affecting. These parts suit an actor able to suggest turmoil through small changes of voice and expression.
His cerebral manner also suited authority figures. As the inventor Dr B. N. Wallis in The Dam Busters (1955), he had another use for that precision. Later, as character roles came to predominate, Joseph Losey’s The Go-Between (1971) cast him as the older Leo Colston. His humane, questioning performance makes this a useful next stop after the more troubled men. For a first encounter, though, we would choose the railway carriage.
Biography
Michael Redgrave (1908–1985) was an English stage and film actor. Born in Bristol, he trained as a teacher before beginning his professional stage career in 1934 at the Liverpool Playhouse. He became a leading Shakespearean performer with the Old Vic and at Stratford-upon-Avon, and later appeared at the National Theatre.
His film career began with the role of Gilbert Redman in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938). He went on to appear in films including Dead of Night (1945), The Browning Version (1951), The Innocents (1961), The Hill (1965) and The Go-Between (1971). Redgrave was also a director, theatre manager and author, and was appointed CBE and knighted.
He was married to actress Rachel Kempson and was the father of actors Vanessa Redgrave, Corin Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave.
