Hitchcock's movie is wildly over-rated and people are far too snowed by the mumbling, bumbling cricket fans, Michael Redgrave's charm and Lockwood's beauty-in-distress.

The new version may not be perfect but it is most definitely not a remake of the 1938 movies, it's an adaptation of the book and far closer to the novel The Wheel Spins. Does it wrap up too quickly? Well, so does the book, unfortunately.

Hitchcock added way too much farce and a silly gun battle that veer so far from the nature of the novel as to be almost unbelievable.

Despite the ending, I recommend The Wheel Spins unreservedly. Its a dark psychological study of a mind almost sinking into madness. The author does a wonderful job of writing about a socialite who is drawn into a mystery way beyond any trouble she's ever had to deal with, one that makes her for the first time in her life feel alone and helpless.

There was clearly a commitment to deliver a high quality remake here... and in many ways it is just that. High production values, location filming, excellent cast, and a leading lady with the charm and edge necessary to bring a potentially unsympathetic character to life. In fact ion another day this would indeed have been a star making turn. Sadly though, all the worthy intentions of the films makers, in particular the unnecessary lengthening of the opening piece, the addition of the girls back story, etc. put a drag on the film that it takes almost the entirety of the rest of the movie to overcome. Those worthy intentions which are also apparent in the reshaping of the earlier films comedy characters Chalmers & Caldicot, (two Colonel Blimp type figures that leavened the earlier film with humour at just the right moments) into two equally stereotypical, but far less humorous Maiden Aunt types. Then just as the films slow start and general heaviness are fading and the stories drama begins to take hold, it jettisons all that Hitchcock brought to the final scenes, dispensing with the coming together of so many disparate types with all their flaws and foolishness in the face of a common and soon to be tyrannical enemy, and fades out with damp squib, supposedly more plausible in its own dull way, as if plausibility is essential for suspense! Dear film makers, Hitch knew what he was doing, beware of thinking you know better.

Based on the 1938 Hitchcock thriller of the same name (which I haven't seen), this looked like rather a good whodunnit. The cast if full of young up-comers and old stalwarts, many of whom seem to be doing the rounds in British TV at the moment.

The premise: a beautiful young socialite, Iris Carr, is making her way back to England by train after a Balkans holiday and finds herself befriended by a kind older lady who calls herself Mrs Froy. Disorientated by a fall at the station earlier, Iris drifts off to sleep, only to find on awakening that Mrs Froy has disappeared and nobody else seems to have seen her - in fact they don't believe she existed in the first place. Of course there are only two possible outcomes: the woman isn't real and Iris is barking mad, or she has genuinely disappeared and there's some sort of conspiracy going on.

Unfortunately the final hour dedicated to resolving the mystery is slow-paced, boring and ultimately all a bit predictable. Apart from Sandy McDade and Tuppence Middleton, all the other characters are stereotypes who get to do very little with their screen time. Middleton is superb, tackling Iris's transition from petulant snobbery to concern and brave determination with aplomb, but the plodding script can't keep up with her enthusiasm. It's definitely a Sunday afternoon movie, and one you can watch with Grandma - just don't expect edge-of-your-seat thrills.