The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Film: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Stars: Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas, May Whitty

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Oscar History: No nominations

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2021 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different one Alfred Hitchcock's Leading Ladies.  This month, our focus is on Margaret Lockwood-click here to learn more about Ms. Lockwood (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

As I mentioned in our initial writeup, Margaret Lockwood's career as a proper headlining star began in 1938 with Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes, which we're investigating today.  That doesn't mean she hadn't worked in pictures before this film, though.  Lockwood was classically trained as a stage actress in London, and had been doing random work with little success for several years before her breakout, including a film with Michael Powell, and frequently getting cast opposite Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.  Her career wasn't taking off the way she would've hoped, though, until 1938, when she got cast in Carol Reed's Bank Holiday, which was a hit (making her a name), and cemented her stature with The Lady Vanishes, which was one of Hitchcock's most popular films of the 1930's.  Hitchcock, who disliked Redgrave but adored Lockwood (he called her a "star of hitherto unanticipated possibilities") made a pretty big name for himself with this movie, and it stands on the precipice of Hitchcock's career as the final of his "British pictures" before signing with David O. Selznick, making Rebecca, and well, becoming HITCHCOCK.

(Spoilers Ahead) But I'm getting ahead of myself-we first need to discuss The Lady Vanishes, which is a treasure.  The film is set initially in an invented country where a number of guests at a ski lodge are stuck for the night due to an avalanche.  Among them are Iris (Lockwood), a beautiful woman doomed to a boring impending engagement, Gilbert (Redgrave) a scamp of a musician whom Iris takes a quick dislike toward, and Miss Froy (Whitty), a kind old woman who enjoys the music of a troubadour outside her window.  The next day all three are on a train bound for England with a variety of figures, including Caldicott & Charters (more on them in a second), two men attempting to get to a cricket match.  On the train, though, Miss Froy suddenly goes missing despite not having a stop, and what's weirder...no one on the train seems to believe Iris when she tells them she's gone, even people who saw her on the train.  I won't get into every nook-and-cranny of the story, but suffice it to say, sometimes conspiracy theories can be true, and it does appear that there's an entire train out to gaslight Iris (and eventually Gilbert, who becomes her love interest) in hopes of keeping Miss Froy's location at bay.

The movie is hailed as Hitchcock's best film of this period, and it's easy to see why-it plays fresh & quick, a great mystery with a number of colorful characters.  Caldicott & Charters would in fact become something of a thing in the following years, with the actors bringing them to other film, television, & radio shows (they are hilarious as a sort of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern for the Hitchcock set).  The plot is juicy, fast-paced, and filled with a lot of hilarious site gags (particularly fun is Catherine Lacey as a brassy "nun"), and it is honestly captivating from start to finish.

And our leads are great!  May Whitty gets sidelined for large chunks of the film but is as pleasant as ever as Mrs. Froy, and Michael Redgrave (in his first major role) is a scalawag who pairs beautifully with our lead Margaret Lockwood.  I will admit that with Lockwood, I had seen virtually none of her movies so I didn't know what to expect, but if this is any indication of her talents, we are in for a treat this month.  Lockwood is witty, spry, & takes a "damsel in distress" role & turns it on its head, totally being willing to take on the action (she hits a man over the head with a bottle at one point), and playing her Iris as a modern woman.  Honestly-I wasn't expecting the week after Dead End was my first home run of 2021 to fall so soon, but I can't deny it when it happens...for the first time ever, we're doing consecutive five-star movies.