Alfred Hitchcock was before moving to Hollywood, a successful British director. He made many films there. A very entertaining one is The Lady Vanishes. The movie, contains many different and eccentric characters. He has a unique ability to bring them together. He starts with passengers on a train, having to stay in a hotel, because of an avalanche. It isn’t all bad, because they are stranded in a beautiful European village. Hitchcock and his team of artists, have assembled a small version of what amounts to a very pretty train garden. He also has humorous situations in the hotel. There is the hotel manager, (Emile Boreo), with very frayed nerves. Another is when an employee enters the room of three women in various states of undress, causing much embarrassment to the employee. The three women are so busy with their conversations that they don’t even notice the man. One of the women is Iris Matilda, (Margaret Lockwood). She is on her way to get married. She has decided to make the most of it before tying the knot. She will figure prominently in the story.
The train after the short delay proceeds to its destination. Margaret has gotten aboard, but her friends did not. Its alright, because Margaret, strikes up a conversation with the woman next to her, Miss Foy, (May Whitty). They have a pleasant conversation over tea. Margaret drifts to sleep after awhile. She awakens to find Miss Foy gone. She inquires where her new friend would be. Margaret comes up with no answers from anyone. Nobody has seen or heard of Miss Foy. The assumption is that because a flowerpot fell on Margaret’s head, while at the hotel,she is delusional.
The saying goes, hope springs eternal. This is what Margaret finds when a passenger, Gilbert, believes her story. The two set about to solve the mystery of Miss Foy. Gilbert even goes as far as wearing a deerstalker cap, like Sherlock Holmes. The two are thwarted by Dr. Egon Hartz, (Paul Lukas), as well as an array of spies. This leads to one of the best climaxes in a Hitchcock film.
The Lady Vanishes is as all of The Master of Suspense’s films, intriguing. It does have characters showing courage above and beyond most Hitchcock movies. Gilbert confronts the dangerous Dr. Hartz. He also jumps out the train’s window to get to another compartment. A woman posing as a nun, (Catherine Lacy), braves gunfire to pull a train switch. There is an unusual amount of humor in this movie. There is a pair of oblivious cricket fans. They are Caldicott and Charters, played by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford. These two characters were so well received, that they appeared in several British films. They were the creation of the writer’s Frank Laudner and Sidney Gilliat. Both writers had a good script, based on the story, The Wheel Spins, by Ethel Lina White. It is a hard thing to adapt a novel, but even more difficult for a short story. The scribes did well.
Hitchcock was able to get good performances from Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood. Redgrave was a Shakespearean actor who was cut from the same cloth as Ralph Richardson and Lawrence Olivier. He became a success like his two contemporaries. His legacy was further enhanced by passing on his talent to his daughters Vanessa and Lynn as well as his granddaughter, Natasha Richardson. May Whitty’s performance isn’t surprising. She was acting on the stage for decades, before making movies later in life. She succeeded in the movie business as well.
Alfred Hitchcock’s early films were different than the ones he made in Hollywood. They have a different feel, but still are good. You can in these films see a man slowly developing his craft, and mainly relying on story. It was a good thing that Hitchcock followed the path to Hollywood. He created stars, and made established stars better. He was revered by the French and lauded by American critics, and was given the title of auteur, (author). Even though his movies are mainly in the suspense genre, he gets accolades for doing this.