The Lady Vanishes – 1938 | 97mins | Thriller| B&W

Plot Synopsis

A film’s plausibility is Hitchcock’s least concern, and he is the first to admit it. Like so many of his films, The Lady Vanishes works on an improbable premise. If the lady of the title, played by the great Dame May Whitty, had merely sent a telegram or made a phone call, we would be without a classic Hitchcockian chase across Eastern Europe. The Lady Vanishes has more overt humour than any other Hitchcock suspense film, with the possible exception of The Trouble With Harry. In fact the first 20 minutes of the film are completely comic, subdued British humour that is at once witty and full of subtle nuance. As the film progresses there is less and less comedy and more gripping suspense. The initial innocence is merely a disguise which magnifies the later thrills. Even in so synthetic a medium as the screen, it is possibly to recognise the work of a master craftsman. The Lady Vanishes is a product of individual imagination and artistry.

The story of this much acclaimed film concerns a young English girl on a train going home from vacation in the Balkans. The girl, Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), meets a kindly old lad named Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) who befriends her when Iris is hit on the head by a falling flowerpot which, we later learn, was meant for Miss Froy. Iris naps on the train and upon awakening from her doze finds that Miss Froy has mysteriously vanished from the train and has been replaced an impostor in Miss Froy’s clothing. Almost all of the passengers deny ever having seen the old lad and contend that she was an illusion brought on by Iris’s accident with the falling flowerpot, a sincere young musician, Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) comes to her assistance. Our young couple meet up with a parade of sinister and bizarre characters as they search the train for a clue to Miss Froy’s whereabouts. There is a circus magician and his family, an “eastern European” baroness, an over-friendly brain surgeon (Paul Lukas) and his nurse dressed as a nun. Slowly, Iris and her musical cohort discover that most of the people on the train are in the employ of or have a decided interest in the success of the apparently evil brain surgeon. But there is a handful of passengers who are on the couple’s side and finally their interactions come into play.

There is the wealthy British official, away for the weekend with his mistress and obviously not desiring to be seen or involved in a case that might give his whereabouts publicity. He has seen Miss Froy and only speaks up when his life is in danger. Two other men, supplying a bit of comedy relief, are played with perfect understatement by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford. They only want to get back to England in time for “the game” -the cricket match must go on and they are not about to miss it, no matter what crisis is developing on the train. The major break for the young couple and the mystery comes when they realise the nurse-nun is wearing high heel shoes-not exactly a Sister’s proper attire. They discover that she is an actress hired by the doctor to guard a fully bandaged “patient” who is supposedly being taken to a hospital for surgery. The patient under wraps is Miss Froy. The heightening tension of the film climaxes as the train is ambushed and we learn that Miss Froy was carrying the secrets of a covert treaty between two foreign powers. Miss Froy makes her escape to deliver the message encoded in the tune of a children’s lullaby. The couple and other passengers on the train fight off the enemy in a noisy gun battle. Of course, the passengers win and the happy couple gets back to Scotland Yard to deliver the message that will supposedly save freedom around the world.

Hitchcock made clever use of transparencies, rear projection systems and miniatures, disguising the almost non-existent budget and the small studio. The set on which the entire film was produced was only ninety feet long. Assisting Hitchcock were a cast of highly professional actors who gave the whimsical plot more meaning and deadly seriousness than it really had. The pacing of the suspense in counterpoint with the pervading comedy made The Lady Vanishes more thrilling than its content warranted. While the comedy was handled mostly by the two foils Wayne and Radford, Michael Redgrave added a significant share as a music “scholar” who is studying eastern European folk dances. It was while preparing The Lady Vanishes that Hitchcock received the bid from Hollywood that was to make him the world’s most famous director. David O. Selznick wired him to come into his employ. After making one more film in Britain Hitchcock was to leave-reluctantly-and not return until 1948 for Under Capricorn except for a brief hiatus for his wartime documentaries.

Extract© Richard A. Harris, Michael S. Lasky: The Complete Films of Alfred Hitchcock.