bbmtwist There's little comment one can add to the IMDb roster about Hitchcock's most polished and professional UK film, the second to last before his American career began.The story, despite its seemingly claustrophobic setting aboard a moving train, never lags, and is always intriguing and interesting. As the layers are pulled away and the plotting revealed, the intensity only increases. All the players are spot on with their performances and Hitchcock's direction is assured and intense, moving things along at a brisk pace and deftly balancing humor and drama.Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave and Dame May Witty are a superb trio in the leads, with excellent character performances. Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne provide interest as a seemingly gay couple on their way to cricket finals. The espionage background, with its leader so well played by the suave Paul Lukas, is never identified, but is so clearly meant to be Nazi- oriented, that it gives a particular urgency to the film within its time period.There are only a few Hitchcockian moments: a montage of eyes in the heroine's vision directly after she receives the blow on the head meant for Miss Froy; the superimposition of Froy's face on each of the faces of those denying her existence, in a rapid montage from the heroine's point of view; the revelation of the Harriman's tea carton against the train window at a crucial moment in the hero's wavering belief in the truth of the heroine's story; the name written on the train window above the tea table; the entirely realistic and unpolished struggle in the baggage car – all delightful and wonderfully engaging bits of cinematography and editing.My print ran 95 minutes. It is to be recommended, along with THE 39 STEPS, as Hitchcock's best UK film. He deservedly won the fourth annual New York Film Critic's Best Director Award for THE LADY VANISHES, bringing him to the attention of David O. Selznick and the Hollywood contract, where he would provide his best work.

grantss Good Hitchcock thriller. A young woman is travelling through continental Europe on a train when she realises that an elderly lady appears to have vanished from the train.Intriguing plot, though gets too convoluted towards the end, and the final scene is rather tame and trite. Perfectly paced, Hitchcock gives you a thorough introduction to the main characters before spinning his web of intrigue. For a thriller, the mood is actually quite light and humorous, rather than dark and edgy, which helps the movie speed along.Good performances all round. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood are excellent in the lead roles.

lasttimeisaw The initial 20 minutes or so of Hitchcock's penultimate film made in UK is frolic where a bunch of passengers (mainly British) is trapped in a local hotel of the fictitious middle- Europe country Bandrika, due to an avalanche has blocked the railway line. Which is quite unusual since mystery and suspense is our knee-jerking reaction towards a vintage Hitchcock brand. But if you think it over after watching the entire movie, you will realise it is a neat conceit, not only does it imply the characteristics of its various players - e.g. proffering a plausible reason for the reaction of two key witness, the cricket enthusiasts Charters (Radford) and Caldicott (Wayne), when they are learned about the lady vanishes; it also excels in satirising the common foibles rooted deep in Britons, notably the married Mr. Todhunter (Parker) and his mistress-in-disguise-as-Ms. Todhunter (Travers), whose switch of testimony will be vividly delineated as an example that truth cannot always win over individual's self-serving reckonings. Also one key character is Miss Froy (Witty), soon will disappear in the train next morning, she is a courteous and amiable retired governess, one lingering big question is why she is the target? The real protagonists are actually an English lady Iris Henderson (Lockwood), who is going back to get married, and Gilbert (Redgrave in his screen debut), a young musician and writer, the two perfectly tallies with a good match started with dispute, she is a bit supercilious while he is very impetuous, but together, they will investigate the mysterious disappearance of Miss. Froy on the train, and a little romance is burgeoning as well.When a pair of unknown hands starts to strangle a man who is serenading under Miss Froy's room, the mystery kicks off (in hindsight, another brilliant plot device), and the next day, a premeditated murder attempt is accidentally foiled but it injures Iris and pairs her with Miss Froy, and then, after the disappearance occurs, the situation becomes more mythic and intriguing, those who clearly see Miss Froy before, all refuse to admit her existence, to the extent Iris begins to question her own rationality, thanks to a prestigious surgeon Dr. Hartz (Lukas) fanning the flames nearby. Eventually through Iris' indomitable persistence and Gilbert's aide, the conspiracy theory is debunking when a conscience- smote mole offers a helping hand (which is the most far-fetched part in the tale). And a final confrontation is a slick action stand-off, with a British-only invitation and gallows humour galore. Lockwood and Redgrave strike up charming chemistry in the fast-paced process of finding out the truth, Paul Lukas is viciously debonair as a heartless snake-in-the-grass, not to mention Dame May Witty, who is pleasantly radiant with her ingenuous facade where true grit lies. And its byproduct - Charters and Caldicott would expand their popularity in three other pictures made by different directors. Suspense, humour, mystery, romance, action, all can be found in Hitchcock's engagingly crafted homegrown piece, even its budget cannot match his later Hollywood fine arts, and certain props and settings are inconveniently discernible as miniatures and models, all the major constituents of Hitchcock-ian school is hearteningly fully-fledged at that stage. Like FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT (1940), the ending of THE LADY VANISHES also evokes the looming-large approach of WWII, and the secret agent trope becomes sought-after ever since in the cinema-scape.

Adam Peters (86%) The opening scenes set in an alpine hotel are like the lines on an old man's face. They really do highlight how old this film is. Not to say that they are bad, they are just of a time long gone. But once this gets going it's as thrilling as any well made modern production of the past twenty- five or so years. As like most Hitchcock movies the female lead character is painfully pretty; but the tone here is a touch lighter than most, which if anything works better than it it had overly serious one. The exciting and well handled shoot-out action towards the end is not something you get too often in movies of this age; and really if it's a classic entertaining mystery flick you're after then this is pretty much a perfect target.