With Jenny back from Chile, we decided to resurrect our movie series starting with some Hitchcock that has recently come out on blu-ray. It’s a mystery to me why blu releases would be available for films like The Lady Vanishes while classics like Vertigo, Rear Window and Strangers on a Train are still not available, but there is some pleasure in this 1938 outing.
For one, it’s thoroughly engaging and has a good deal of suspense to it. Because of the omniscient camera, we know that something’s up with Miss Froy’s disappearance, but we can only assemble the clues as Iris and Gilbert find them to construct the plot behind the abduction. And no sooner is that question answered than the film presents another: Will the heroes escape? So the film is fairly suspenseful once the characters finally get on the train.
But before they leave the station, the expository beginning of the film is a bit long. That said, the scenes in the hotel establish a range of characters that provide a richness in the rest of the film. And Hitchcock uses this variety of Brits for social commentary and satire. There’s a spineless adulterer who has aspirations of being a judge and his much clearer-thinking mistress. There’s the comedic, stiff-upper-lip duo of cricket fans who are so ingrained in their British convention that they have no interest what’s happening around them, though when finally aroused from their nose-to-the-ground stance, they capably resist the bad guys. A gallant, young musicologist, too, rises to the occasion by helping solving the mystery and aid Britain. Of course, the governess Miss Froy is an understated patriot. And a British collaborator with the forces of Bandrika takes a moral stand and joins those seeking to save Miss Froy when the evil of the Bandrikan plot becomes apparent. It’s hard not to see a vague allegory here with the Germanic bad guys pushing around this eclectic set of Brits until the later are roused to successful resistance.
Other aspects of the movie also please. The dialog is often snappy and witty in the way of dialog in a screwball comedy, and it’s also fun to see this early film as presaging later Hitchcock elements. Psychology is already an interest here with the idea of hallucination as a result of a blow to the head, and the character of menacing Baroness certainly prefigures future threatening mothers and housekeepers. There is also a love story wrapped in the thriller, and lots of play with cinematic devices like sound and reversals. And a cameo by the director. A lot of Hitchcock is already apparent in 1938.The Lady Vanishes isn’t the tightest or most compelling of Hitchcock’s work, but it’s fun. And it certainly hints at what’s to come in Hitchcock’s career.
