The Lady Vanishes: 2-Disc Edition: The Criterion Collection (DVD)

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Criterion has re-released "The Lady Vanishes," one of the first films to appear in the Criterion collection, with a newly restored transfer and a two-disc set with several extras not found on the original release. The following is a review of the re-release.


When Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) awakens in her train compartment, she finds that her new friend Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty) has disappeared. The people sharing her compartment insist there was never a Miss Froy. Iris remains and determined and marches through the train, trying to find someone to back up her story, yet she is foiled by one coincidence after another. A couple who wish to remain secretive lie about it to protect themselves; two British cricket enthusiasts evade the question because they don´t want to risk any delay on their way to a cricket watch. Later, Iris tries to convince Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) by drawing his attention to the name which Miss Froy had written into the rime-crusted window, but as soon as he turns to look the train rumbles into a tunnel and the name disappears from view. Poor Iris just can´t catch a break.

It´s enough to make you want to put your fist through the screen. Any of these tricks used in a film today would inspire charges of lazy writing, but for some reason Hitchcock always gets a free pass for the awkward and implausible coincidences that power some of his stories. Actually, it´s not just some reason, but a very good reason. The plot tricks that look tired and transparent today only look that way because Hitchcock helped to introduce them into the language of cinema; if that´s too grandiose a claim, let´s just say that the last 80 years of the suspense genre were shaped largely by Hitchcock and his writers.

Still, I still find myself frustrated by the excessive cleverness that sometimes reads as cutesiness in many of Hitchcock´s earlier suspense films, and that definitely holds true for "The Lady Vanishes" (1938). François Truffaut claimed that every time he tried to watch Alfred Hitchcock´s "The Lady Vanishes" (1938) for its camera movements he became too absorbed by the plot to notice. I don´t share that problem. However, the greatest pleasures of the film have little to do with plot, and more to do with the details. And oh what details they are.

Take the moment when the hotel porter walks into the room occupied by Iris and her two bachelorette friends. Iris, who will soon board the train to meet with her "blue-blooded check-chasing" fiancé, is reciting her future wedding vows. Hitchcock, already a "dirty old man" at the mere age of 40, breaks the scene into a series of fetishistic close-ups; one of Iris´ friend half-dressed; another a close-up of Iris´ bare legs and slip as she stands on the table, holding court. Hitch dials up the fetish factor another notch when he shows us a nun in high heels, but that´s another story.

Then there´s the extraordinary way that Hitch stages a scene already ancient by 1938 where the villain tries to slip the heroes a poisoned drink. Hitch turns convention on its ear. Instead of having the heroes toy with their drinks only to stop just short of actually knocking one back, he simply holds on a long shot of the glasses sitting on the table. The conversation runs its natural course, everyone gets up to leave then, boom, and Iris downs her brandy in one swift motion. The next scene provides yet another twist on the formula.

Oh, and let´s not forget that outrageously staged fight between Gilbert and Signor Doppo (Philip Leaver). Obviously neither the proper Englishman nor the Italian magician have the slightest idea how to fight, so they grapple like fifth graders wrestling at recess, neither making much headway. They battle to a standstill so literal that Iris is able to position a step-ladder so she can reach up to bite Doppo on the hand.