The Lady VanishesRating:
Release Date: 19 June, 1998 Retail Price: $7.99 OUR Price: $7.99 You SAVE: $0.00! Cast: Complete Cast (6 total) |
The Lady Vanishes Reviews
The best of the British Hitchcocks
The train trip is inherently dramatic, a perfect venue for Hitchcock's brand of sophisticated comedy and suspense. Politically, the movie is an anti-isolationist diatribe, but as with most Hitchcock movies, the mechanism for suspense is second to the suspense itself. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood make an excellent team as they begin, in the classic screwball style, despising each other, and then, thrown together along the rails of Europe to outwit the clever fascists who have abducted the superannuated spy played by Dame May Whitty, they fall easily in love. The wonderful script gives the two much opportunity to flirt and bicker wittily. Truffaut said of The Lady Vanishes that each time he attempted to study its craft and direction, he became so caught up in the story itself, that it became nearly impossible to divert himself long enough analyze its form. It is a seamless, exciting, richly satisfying movie with a phalanx of marvelous character actors, including the droll pair of Radford and Wayne as the cricket-obsessed travellers skeptical of the apparent mystery. They get the best laughs. Overall, The Lady Vanishes ranks with any of Hitchcock and is most comparable to the fun and thrills of North by Northwest, but it's my personal favorite of all his great work (except maybe for Psycho).
Hitchcock's entertaining comedy thriller - one of his best!
"The Lady Vanishes" is one of Hitchcock's early black and white British films (1938) and the success of this film helped Hitchcock to be recognised in America as a talented director. He made one more film in England after "The Lady Vanishes" then left for Hollywood where he became famous as the top director of suspense movies. "The Lady Vanishes" is a cracking comedy thriller with a notable script by Sidney Gilliatt, Frank Launder and Alma Reville (Hitchcock's wife).
Mainly set on a train snowbound in the Swiss Alps Margaret Lockwood is Iris Henderson who befriends Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty). Miss Froy then mysteriously vanishes and no one on the train will admit seeing her (although many of them did in fact meet her they each have their own reasons to keep quiet about it). Iris manages to persuade fellow traveller Gilbert Redman (Michael Redgrave in his screen debut) to help her in the search. Cricket fanatics Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) have seen Miss Froy on the train but are worried that an investigation into her disappearance might delay them getting to Manchester in time for their beloved Test Match so they decide to stay silent. Dr Hartz (Paul Lukas) tries to convince Iris that she is mistaken and has imagined the entire episode due to a blow on the head she received prior to the train journey. Several other passengers on the train also saw Miss Froy but do not want to be involved which confuses our heroine and places her in great danger as the journey progresses.
Some favourite lines from the film:
Basil Radford (on the phone to London): "I'm enquiring about the Test Match in Manchester. Cricket, sir, cricket! What! You don't know! You can't be in England and not know the Test score!".
Margaret Lockwood (to Michael Redgrave): "I know there's a Miss Froy - she's as real as you are".
The film was remade in colour in 1979 with Elliott Gould and Cybill Shepherd but the Hitchcock version is still the best. For anyone interested in spotting Hitchcock's regular cameo appearance this comes right at the end of the film when Lockwood and Redgrave arrive back in London. (Hitchcock can be seen at Victoria Station smoking a cigar). Clive Roberts.
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