Day 3: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

It’s our third day here at the “Criterion Summer” and our first with a film I didn’t need subtitles to understand. But to say this movie is simply “in English” is an understatement. Every fiber of “The Lady Vanishes” by Alfred Hitchcock is English through and through. With a wit dryer than a martini and characters who could have come from Wodehouse, Hitchock delivers less of a “whodunnit” and more of a “wheredidshego,” a suspense tale so lathered in one-liners and good fun that even François Truffaut confessed to becoming so absorbed in the plot that he forgot to study the film’s trick shots and camera movements.

“The Lady Vanishes” is a good natured romp concerning a group of  passengers on a train headed for England, who quickly fall into a thick web of deceit and international espionage. Leading the cast is Margaret Lockwood as Iris, a young lady traveling back home in preparation for a reluctant marriage.

As the train makes its way, Iris encounters Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), a white-haired spinster, who she shares a compartment with. The two become aquainted and Iris eventually takes a nap while Miss Froy works on a magazine puzzle. Upon awaking, Iris finds Miss Froy gone and nowhere to be found. Iris questions everyone on the train, but no one recalls the sweet old lady- not even Gilbert (Michael Redgrave), an acquaintance Iris met the day before at a local hotel. Though she is told Miss Froy may be the result of a recent concussion she has suffered, Iris is adamant about the woman’s existence and must prove herself before the train reaches its destination and time runs out.

What we have in “The Lady Vanishes” is Hitchcock right before he breaks onto the Hollywood scene. The second to last film in his “British” era, this marks a time when Hitchcock was already talking with David O. Selznick about working in the states after the success of his two previous films, “The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) and ”The 39 Steps.” But, still under contract with Gaumont British, Hitchcock picked up ”Vanishes” script, which had been in “development hell” after nearly being filmed a year prior by American Roy William Neill, who later went on to direct the Basil Rathbone “Sherlock Holmes” pictures. The result of “Vanishes” was another smash hit for Hitchcock in both the U.K. and U.S.A. as well as a career starter for Lockwood and Redgrave, giving all three a chance for Hollywood stardom.

Throughout the film, we see Hitchcock using techniques that would later mature and grow into staples of the director’s style. For one, the use of practical effects, which would eventually help Cary Grant scale Mount Rushmore in “North by Northwest”, are used in “Vanishes” to simply establish a mountainous landscape through a minature set. Also a precursor to “Verigo”, Lockwood’s Iris grows dizzy on the train and Hitch uses multiple copies of the same shot superimposed over one another to give the audience a sense that the room is spinning.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” is one of the “Master of Suspense’s” great early works and probably his funniest. The film never feels torn apart by its contrasting genres, but instead thrives on the quirky hybrid it creates. The fun and action flow together easily and, like a classic cup of English Earl Grey, go down just as smooth.

To find out more about “The Lady Vanishes,” check out Criterion’s page here.

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