Title: The Lady Vanishes
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Country: United Kingdom
Year: 1938
Running time: 97 minutes
Starring: Margaret Lockwood, Micheal Redgrave, Paul Lukas, Dame Mae Whitty
Criterion Spine No: 3
Primary Reviewer: Nick
Background
Adapted from Ethel White's The Wheel Spins (1936), The Lady Vanishes was Alfred Hitchcock's second-to-last film in Britain before moving to the United States. Already in production, the script was completed before Hitchcock signed on as director, and unlike many of his projects, he made few changes to it.
First Impressions
Even from the opening sequence, the film struggles to find a tonal center. It lacks the tension typically associated with Hitchcock's oeuvre. Out of all the films from his British period, it relies most heavily on slapstick comedy and mass appeal. With that said, aspects of Hitchcock's masterful technique with picture and sound do overcome a weak script to redeem The Lady Vanishes as an interesting piece of film history, if not a particularly spectacular viewing experience.
Review
Opening on an idyllic model of central European countryside, (literally, as Hitchcock loathed filming on location) The Lady Vanishes immediately begins throwing together the calm and chaotic. Unable to settle on a screwball comedy or an espionage drama, the script wavers between the two throughout the opening act. By the time it settles down, it has already expended this viewer's goodwill. Lacking the usual complexity of a Hitchcock film, it relies instead on poor plot twists to compensate for the absence of character development.
While many will argue for films as a product of their time period, The Lady Vanishes tries its hardest to offend on every level. Roles for any character in the film break down into four stereotypes; British characters either remain stoic and wry, or outspoken and noble. Alternatively, any non-Brits (since regardless of nationality all other characters get lumped together) must provide comic relief or serve as calculating villains. These paper-thin archetypes don't fit well with Hitchcock's style of character development and limit the possibility of their growth over the course of the film.
Despite these failings, the film still has some things going for it. If nothing else, it feels both grand and claustrophobic at the same time, a credit to Hitchcock's ability as a filmmaker. On a cramped, meaning under 40 foot long, set using the tiny train compartments, it stretches its available location to maximum effect. Fans of the director will enjoy it the most though, since little trademarks of his, moving train tracks comes to mind, appear constantly. The actors also do the best they can to hold up the floundering film; Paul Lukas particularly shines and manages to add a layer of sympathy to an otherwise villainous role, and, as always, Mae Whitty as the matronly spy Mrs. Froy shows off her impressive range.
Second Opinion
Not having quite the extent of Hitchcock experience, but still being relatively familiar with his later works, I have to agree that this film is a oddity in his repertoire, but what stood out most to me was the depiction of its female characters. In the first act we primarily meet young women (Iris and her friends as well as the hotel maid). They are all quite active and worldly, Iris telling her friends she is happy to return to England to settle down as she has already “...been everywhere, and done everything.”
Yet there is a sexualized aspect to these young women that alternately fixates the camera and shocks the more stoic of male characters. Charters and Caldicott are perplexed and embarrassed when the hotel maid (whose room they occupy) walks in on them and begins changing her clothes. The hotel attendant is in turn at a loss when he enters Iris's room where she is standing on the table, bare legs exposed directly in front of him, and taking up the focus of the frame. Imagine his confusion a moment later when she requests assistance getting down and he must clasp her barely dressed waist.
I'm tempted to add to Nick's assessment of character stereotypes and conclude that there are two types of women in the film (although some women do not fall into these categories, instead fitting into the general 'foreigners' classification), these being the adventurous and attractive young women, and the matured, darkly mysterious women (characters who later appear on the train). Oddly enough Mrs. Froy is the only woman who doesn't fit just one of these two descriptions, instead landing somewhere in between, another reason why she is the most interesting character in the film.
-Karah
Closing Thoughts
As an intriguing piece in Hitchcock's growth as a filmmaker, The Lady Vanishes is worth watching as window into the history of film while not being particularly accomplished or valuable as entertainment.
