“The Lady Vanishes”

Tags

1930s, Alfred Hitchcock, British, Ethel Lina White, Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Movies, mystery, The Lady Vanishes, The Wheel Spins, thriller

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about an English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady’s disappearance.  

The Lady Vanishes was filmed at the Gainsborough Studios in Islington, London. Hitchcock caught Hollywood’s attention with the film and moved to Hollywood soon after its release. Although the director’s three previous efforts had done poorly at the box office, The Lady Vanishes was widely successful. 

The British Film Institute ranked The Lady Vanishes the 35th best British film of the 20th century. It is one of Hitchcock’s most renowned British films, and the first of three screen versions of White’s novel as of January 2021.