Criterion Collection DVD
The Lady Vanishes (1938)
R0 / NTSC DVD
Laserlight / 1999
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writers: Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder, Ethel Lina White
Cast: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, May Whitty & Paul Lukas
Review by James Garfield
Iris (Margaret Lockwood) is on a trip through Europe before returning to London to get married. She meets a nice old lady, Miss Froy (May Whitty) who accompanies her on the next morning’s train. Iris falls asleep shortly into the journey and awakens to find Miss Froy gone. She enquires among the other passengers, but none of them can recall ever having seen Miss Froy on the train. Fortunately, Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave), an admirer, believes her and helps her get to the bottom of the mystery, which turns out to involve espionage.
One of Hitchcock’s early British films (and thus available in the public domain), Lady Vanishes has a rather protracted comedic opening introducing all the characters at a hotel. It takes a half hour for the characters to board the train and for the intrigue to begin, but it’s certainly worth the wait. The plot twists and turns enough to maintain the suspense for the duration of the film, and Redman, whom I initially found annoying, metamorphoses into a likable hero. Here we see some familiar Hitchcock motifs in the early stages of their use: the setting of action on a train, and the paranoia of the lead character. Iris faces immense frustration and creeping fear over the refusal of other train passengers to admit a plain fact of reality, the old lady’s existence, but doubts her own sanity less than she does the trustworthiness of the other train passengers. (The movie could have been a real nailbiter if she had no accomplice who believed her.)
The Lady Vanishes is not a straight thriller, but maintains a comic tone for much of the film. This lends it additional charm, and (once the train journey is underway) doesn’t get in the way of the suspense. Train buffs (like my father) will want to see this just for the setting, one Hitchcock returned to repeatedly throughout his career. As for this particular DVD release (one among many; it’s PD) the extras are rather pathetic; awkward opening and closing comments by Tony Curtis and a trailer not even for the film itself, but for Hitchcock’s later Shadow of a Doubt.
