The Lady Vanishes (1938) - film review

A group of British travellers are stranded in a hotel in a remote European country.  After holidaying with some friends, Iris Henderson is on her way back home to get married.  She meets a kindly old lady, Miss Froy, a former governess who is sad to leave the country she has made her home.  Iris’ sleep is disturbed by Gilbert Redman, a musician who is making a study of European folk music.  The next day, the railway tracks have been cleared and the group can continue their rail journey back to England.  Iris meets up with Miss Froy once more on the train, but when she awakes after a short nap the old lady has mysteriously disappeared.  Worryingly, when Iris asks the other passengers what has happened to Miss Froy, everyone denies ever having seen her on the train.  The only person who believes her is Gilbert.  Together, they attempt to unravel the mystery of the vanishing lady…

Considered to be the best of Alfred Hitchcock’s British films (or, at the very least, a close second to his The Thirty Nine Steps), The Lady Vanishes was the last film but one he made before his move to Hollywood.  The film skilfully combines suspense thriller and black comedy, making this one of Hitchcock’s most entertaining – and unpredictable – films.  It was also a welcome commercial success after the failure of his previous couple of films.

The film’s cast is as perfect as its direction and scripting.  Margaret Lockwood makes a terrific Hitchcockian heroine – resilient, vulnerable and attractive; her pairing with the great Michael Redgrave is a stroke of genius.  This is just one of the many well-formed double acts the film has to offer – the most memorable being Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the cricket-obsessed Charters and Caldicott.  These latter two proved to be so popular that they re-appeared in a number of subsequent films.

The more shocking sequences in The Lady Vanishes are offset by some superlative – and wonderfully downplayed – comedy, which curiously adds to the suspense.  There are even a few nice expressionist touches, notably the sequence when Iris struggles to hold onto her consciousness as the train begins its nightmarish journey.  The film’s strengths – particularly in its characterisation and atmosphere – manage to carry it through its weaker moments (an unconvincing model shot at the start of the film, and a needlessly drawn-out shoot-out sequence near the end).  On a bigger budget, Hitchcock would undoubtedly have managed to make a more polished production, but it is doubtful that he would have improved upon the film he did make, the compelling and irresistibly funny The Lady Vanishes.

© James Travers 2004

Write a review for this film...

Considered one of the best of Hitchcock’s films from his first British époque, The Lady Vanishes suffers in my opinion from the negative impact of time going by. Nowadays, spectators have not the disposition to appreciate a kind of operetta thriller, abundant in grotesque but not always funny scenes, and performances bordering on caricature.  Nevertheless, Hitchcock’s fans may enjoy the intriguing and interesting situations that are repeated in many of his films, those that transform his vast work into a single continuous one – compare, for instance, the train scenes with those of the later North by Northwest.   The director does not dissimulate the essential artificiality of the movie; on the contrary, he remarks on it sometimes with the same devices. At the beginning, the panoramic shot above the rail station does not conceal the use of a maquette, and we cannot attribute it simply to a poor use of technique.  In the later Marnie, the street and the big ship are clearly painted scenery. In The Lady Vanishes, Hitchcock, as usual, appears as a false anonymous extra, reminding us this is a fiction and I am its creator.  In the last scene of the film, we see the old lady at the piano in her Foreign Office bureau.  She stops playing to receive the young couple and seems to congratulate them, not for their behaviour in the story, but for ending their performance in the film.
Adam Gai (Israel)

What do you think of this film?