one of my absolute favorites!

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I doubt that many people these days have ever heard of this movie but IMO it's one of those absolute classic films which is practically flawless and holds your attention from beginning to end. The sense of period is marvellous and all the cast are fully professional in their roles. The one character that really stood out for me was Mde.Herve played by Cathleen Nesbitt. I was probably only around 17/18 when I saw this on t.v. but her portrayal was the one I remembered most vividly for years after. It was great to be reacquainted via YouTube and as a mark of a truly great production it was every bit as good as I remembered which, as we all know, is so often not the case after the passing of many years.

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.

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.

Not many people know that the basic plot of this film is based on a real life event that took place during the 1889 Great Exhibition in Paris. There are major differences of course; for a start, the young woman arrived with her mother and not brother as depicted in the film. Secondly, they arrived directly from India and not Italy. Ironically, the 1955 TV Episode 'Into Thin Air' - part of Alfred Hitchcock presents - is far closer to the truth than the 1950 feature film.But I agree to the change of plot because casting the missing person as the brother gives the story more flexibility. That said, the script should have been far more exciting than the rather bland fare that the director had to cope with. There was plenty of scope for a brilliant thriller with plenty of red herrings, something which Hitchcock would have exploited with glee - as he already had done in his 'The Lady Vanishes' and would do so again in the aforementioned TV episode.