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IMDbPro

The Lady Vanishes

  • 19381938
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 36m
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
52K
YOUR RATING
Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
Trailer for The Lady Vanishes
Play trailer1:22
1 Video
70 Photos
  • Mystery
  • Thriller
While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.
IMDb RATING
7.8/10
52K
YOUR RATING
  • Director
    • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers
    • Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
    • Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
    • Frank Launder(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Margaret Lockwood
    • Michael Redgrave
    • Paul Lukas
Top credits
  • Director
    • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Writers
    • Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
    • Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
    • Frank Launder(screen play)
  • Stars
    • Margaret Lockwood
    • Michael Redgrave
    • Paul Lukas
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 256User reviews
    • 111Critic reviews
    • 98Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 1 nomination

    Videos1

    The Lady Vanishes: The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]
    Trailer 1:22
    The Lady Vanishes: The Criterion Collection [Blu-Ray]

    Photos70

    Basil Radford, Naunton Wayne, and May Whitty in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Basil Radford, Linden Travers, and Naunton Wayne in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Catherine Lacey, Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Naunton Wayne, and May Whitty in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Margaret Lockwood in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Margaret Lockwood, Cecil Parker, Basil Radford, Michael Redgrave, Linden Travers, Naunton Wayne, and May Whitty in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Margaret Lockwood, Basil Radford, Michael Redgrave, Linden Travers, and Naunton Wayne in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Paul Lukas, Margaret Lockwood, and Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Mary Clare, Paul Lukas, Margaret Lockwood, and Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Alfred Hitchcock, Catherine Lacey, Margaret Lockwood, and Michael Redgrave in The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    The Lady Vanishes (1938)
    Paul Lukas, Margaret Lockwood, Basil Radford, Michael Redgrave, Naunton Wayne, and May Whitty in The Lady Vanishes (1938)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Margaret Lockwood
    Margaret Lockwood
    • Iris Matilda Henderson
    Michael Redgrave
    Michael Redgrave
    • Gilbert Redman
    Paul Lukas
    Paul Lukas
    • Dr. Egon Hartz
    May Whitty
    May Whitty
    • Miss Froy
    • (as Dame May Whitty)
    Cecil Parker
    Cecil Parker
    • Mr. Todhunter
    Linden Travers
    Linden Travers
    • 'Mrs.' Todhunter
    Naunton Wayne
    Naunton Wayne
    • Caldicott
    Basil Radford
    Basil Radford
    • Charters
    Mary Clare
    Mary Clare
    • Baroness Athona
    Emile Boreo
    • Hotel Manager
    Googie Withers
    Googie Withers
    • Blanche
    Sally Stewart
    • Julie
    Philip Leaver
    Philip Leaver
    • Signor Doppo
    Selma Vaz Dias
    • Signora Doppo
    • (as Zelma Vas Dias)
    Catherine Lacey
    Catherine Lacey
    • The Nun
    • (as Catherine Lacy)
    Josephine Wilson
    • Madame Kummer
    Charles Oliver
    Charles Oliver
    • The Officer
    Kathleen Tremaine
    • Anna
    • Director
      • Alfred Hitchcock
    • Writers
      • Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
      • Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
      • Frank Launder(screen play)
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that this movie was inspired by a legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880s, at the time of the Great Exposition: "The woman was taken sick and they sent the girl across Paris to get some medicine in a horse-vehicle, so it took about four hours. When she came back she asked, 'How's my mother?' 'What mother?' 'My mother. She's here, she's in her room. Room 22.' They go up there. Different room, different wallpaper, everything. And the payoff of the whole story is, so the legend goes, that the woman had bubonic plague and they dared not let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied." The urban legend, known as the Vanishing Hotel Room, also formed the basis of one segment of the German portmanteau film Eerie Tales (1919), So Long at the Fair (1950) (in which the missing person was the young woman's brother as opposed to her mother) and Into Thin Air (1955), starring Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock.
    • Goofs
      In the noisy dancing scene above Lockwood's hotel room, the clarinet is shown with the mouthpiece turned with the reed upwards. Normally the mouthpiece is turned so that the reed is downwards, but in some European folk traditions the clarinet was played with the mouthpiece "upside-down".
    • Quotes

      Gilbert: Can I help?

      Iris Henderson: Only by going away.

      Gilbert: No, no, no, no. My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.

    • Crazy credits
      Closing credits: The Characters in "THE LADY VANISHES" were played by:
    • Alternate versions
      A brief segment where a hotel maid bends down to pick up a hat from under a hotel bed is missing from most US releases, including Criterion's first official DVD and all bootlegs. It's intact in all official non-US releases and has been restored for Criterion's 2-disc remastered DVD.
    • Connections
      Edited from Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937)
    • Soundtracks
      Colonel Bogey March
      (1914) (uncredited)

      Music by Kenneth Alford

      Hummed by Michael Redgrave

    User reviews256

    Review
    Top review
    the best of the early Hitchcock films
    This is the best of the early Hitchcock films. The plot is absorbing, the dialogue clever and the cast great. Whether or not this was the first of the director's films to place its principal action on a moving train I cannot say, but it's a theme that would come back again in his later work, most notably in "Strangers on a Train."

    The film gets off to a somewhat rocky start with the camera panning over an Alpine inn and a train halted mid-journey by an avalanche. I agree with the review who observes that we've become spoilt by more sophisticated special effects. A Lionel half buried in a heap of bleached wheat flower just doesn't cut it nowadays. Think also of the stick figure engulfed in the munitions factory explosion in "Saboteur." I suppose directors of that era had to do with whatever was available.

    But after this point the film really takes off, and one scarcely recalls the unpromising opening. Viewers always look for the chemistry or lack thereof between actors. Well, Lockwood and Redgrave definitely have it. One cannot help but enjoy seeing how the initial sparks flying between their clashing characters develop into true love by movie's end. As the two are making their way through the train trying to locate Whitty, they move from one barely plausible predicament to another. But we love it, as one witty exchange turns quickly into another. (For example, Lockwood is asked to describe the missing Whitty and launches into an extremely detailed portrait that leaves not a single button unaccounted for. Then she ends by saying, "That's all I can remember." Counters Redgrave dryly: "Well, you can't have been paying attention.")

    Much of the film's action occurs in the fictional country of Bandrika, which seems to be a thinly disguised stand-in for nazi-controlled Austria, so recently annexed by Hitler's Germany. As an amateur linguist, I found myself trying to make sense of the made-up "Bandrikan" spoken by the natives, but of course was unable to do so. (What could it be? A Finno-Ugric language? :) Most of the time the identity of Hitchcock's villains remains deliberately vague, except in "Notorious" and "Torn Curtain," where they are nazis and communists respectively. It works better when he leaves us guessing.

    As an amateur musician I loved Hitch's "macguffin," namely, the secret formula encoded in a song which the protagonists had to memorize and carry to the Foreign Office in London. (I should think, however, that a genuine secret message might translate into something more like Schoenberg's twelve-tone music than a central European folk song, but of course that would hardly work in a film. :)

    The early Hitchcock seemed to like shootouts, as seen also in the first version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much." But shootouts are an ineffective way to convey suspense, and this is perhaps the one thing that dims what is otherwise a masterpiece.

    It's too bad the director lived long enough to see this film remade in 1979. Cybil Shepherd is no Margaret Lockwood, and it's pretty unpleasant-almost embarrassing-to see her shrieking her way through each scene. Couldn't they have waited a few years until he had passed on? They ought to have let him die in peace.
    helpful•58
    26
    • Dtkoyzis
    • Feb 4, 2001

    FAQ17

    • Is this film in the public domain?
    • Every copy I've seen has been terrible. Which is the best version to buy?
    • Who erases the name "Froy" written in the train's window fog after the train goes in a tunnel?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • November 1, 1938 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • United Kingdom
    • Languages
      • English
      • German
      • French
      • Italian
    • Also known as
      • The Lost Lady
    • Filming locations
      • Longmoor Military Railway, Longmoor Military Camp, Hampshire, England, UK
    • Production company
      • Gainsborough Pictures
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross worldwide
      • $39,776
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 36 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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