The making of a film is a collaborative process and not even the best of planning can predict how all the disparate elements are going to mesh together.  When "everything clicks" (to borrow a phrase Billy Wilder used in reference to the making of Sunset Boulevard) the film is brought together as the director envisioned, but also has an added quality, a certain resonance of reality that brings the story to "life", as it were. When all the pieces fit perfectly together, it engenders a certain special alchemy that allows a film to connect freshly with audiences over time.  In other words, when everything clicks, you've got yourself a classic.  This is one such film.

          The Lady Vanishes is brisk, breezy, funny.  Every member of the cast is so perfect for their parts they seem to be born to them. And if Hitchcock only came to the project late, and had not the opportunity to put his full mark upon every little thing from the inception… well, let's call that destiny too.

          The Lady Vanishes is a thriller which, amazingly, plays as freshly in its first viewing (when one is still a "virgin" as to the unfolding mystery) as it does after repeated viewings (when one knows how it all turns out but finds the fun in getting there.)  That said, it's time for what one might call a Parental Warning.  If you are still a virgin as to the plot and wish to remain so, read no further for thou shall be despoiled.  [What you need to do in that case is get yourself a copy of The Lady Vanishes and despoil yourself.]  Otherwise, read on:

THE PLOT------------------------>

• The story begins in a small, mountainous European country.  A train has been stalled due to an avalanche.  The passengers of the train wait it out at an overtaxed Alpine hotel where a trumpet-playing cookoo clock announces the passing hours.

The inconvenienced passengers include:

• (a) An English maiden (Iris Henderson --played by Margaret Lockwood) on a ski holiday with her two twenty-something girlfriends.  Iris is due back in England to marry a "blue-blooded check chaser" on Thursday next.  [Says Iris, wistfully: "I've no regrets.  I've been everywhere and done everything.  What is there left for me but... marriage." ]  Iris anticipates becoming "a slightly burnt offering on an altar in Hanover square."

• (b) An elderly British governess/music teacher decked out in oatmeal tweed (Dame May Whitty) and who is quite fond of snowy peaks and festive local song.

• (c) Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, respectively), a pair of cricket-obsessed ex-pubic schoolmates (now grown into their late thirties/early forties) on holiday, we know not where or why.  The pair's overriding goal is to get back to England in time for the Test Match at Manchester  ["That's cricket, sir --cricket!!"].

• (d) An assortment of colorfully non-British folk.

• And, finally, (e) A very-British young man (Michael Redgrave) who seems to be involved in some bizarre study of local folk dance customs.

• Iris runs afoul of the young man with the interest in local folk dance custom.  He is making a racket in the room above her.  She calls the manager and, with the benefit of a small bribe, has the noisy lout evicted from his room.

• The just-evicted young man, "Gilbert", decides the best revenge is to move in with Iris.  (The two hit it off like cats and dogs, signaling a healthy love life together at some future date.)  Aghast at the new arrangement, Iris arranges for Gilbert to be restored to his former room. [Gilbert: 1, Iris: 0]

• The tweedy British governess listens to a local man serenading outside her window.  All seems well until someone abruptly strangles the man in mid-song.  No one sees the dirty deed done, nothing comes of it, and next morning the train is again ready to take on the inconvenienced passengers.

[All this is a fairly long setup but it works due to Hitchcock's gift at fleshing out the humorous detail.]

• Next day, the passengers stand outside the hotel, waiting to board the train.  Two things happen.  (i)  We are introduced to yet another British couple --a married barrister (Cecil Parker) and his mistress (Linden Travers).  (ii)  A flowerpot falls from a second story window, smack onto Iris's head, "braining" her.

• Still groggy, Iris boards the train and waves good-bye to her two girlfriends.  She then passes out.  She revives to find herself in a train compartment (occupied by four people in all) being tended to by the tweedy British governess.  Iris and the Tweedy One head into the dining car for a spot of tea.

• At tea, the tweed-clothed lady (a) introduces herself as Miss Froy and, (b), makes a special request that her own tea --Harriman's Herbal Tea ("a million Mexicans drink it")-- be brewed.  The two have a nice, quiet chat.

• Iris and Miss Froy head back to the compartment.  Shortly thereafter, Iris falls asleep.

• When Iris awakens Miss Froy is no longer in the compartment. Iris asks the others in the compartment where Miss Froy may have went.  The other passengers (an Italian man and two non-English women) don't seem to know what she is talking about. There was no English lady here, they insist!



• Iris returns to the dining car.  The attendant recalls no other woman seated with Iris.  He insists that Iris dined alone --and produces the bill to prove it!

• Iris eventually bumps into Gilbert and he joins the hunt.  In time they are joined by famous foreign "brain specialist" Dr. Hartz (Paul Lukas).  However, once again the passengers deny that they have ever seen the tweedy English lady.  Each of the British passengers is shown to be lying for their own selfish reasons. [We don't know why the non-British passenger might be lying.]

• Dr. Hartz insists that Iris is no doubt suffering a hallucination caused by the bump on the head she received at the station.

• The barrister's mistress, for reasons of her own, comes forward to admit she has indeed seen the woman.  (Shortly thereafter she changes her story, again for her own personal reasons.)

• Upon someone, at least temporarily, confirming the existence of a tweed-clothed woman, a woman dressed in tweed suddenly shows up in Iris's compartment.  The other passengers in the compartment insist that she is the woman with whom Iris went to tea.  They were confused because Iris spoke of an English lady and the new tweedy woman is German.  What's more, the barrister's mistress, upon being questioned, now identifies the German woman as the lady she remembers seeing!

• All seems at an impasse when Gilbert spots the package of Harriman's Herbal Tea as it is being thrown out with the rubbish. Gilbert realizes that Iris is not hallucinating.  The two set out to search the train from stem to stern.

• Iris and Gilbert begin in the baggage car where they find Miss Froy's glasses amid the props of an Italian magician (his act is called "The Vanishing Lady") who was a fellow passenger in Iris's compartment.  The magician himself appears in the baggage car and tries to make off with the glasses.  There is a highly comical struggle and the magician gets away --with the glasses.

• Iris and Gilbert return to the passenger section of the train and place their trust in the wrong person.  Before you know it they are in the hands of the Main Villain, who tells them that Miss Froy is to be taken off the train and killed.

• But Iris and Gilbert are not so indisposed as the Villain suspects. They manage to make a switch that results in the Villain taking the wrong person off the train.  The Villain notices the switch at the last second, has the train de-coupled by the authorities (with whom the Villain seems to have considerable clout) and the train is diverted to a branch line.

• The train now has only the passengers who were in the dining car for tea-time, i.e. all the British.  The train is stopped in a deserted area where the Villain and several uniformed men (with guns) are waiting.

• There is a standoff/shoot out, a terrific sequence.  There is a repudiation of the one pacifist/coward on the train --the married barrister, who ends up dead.  The cricket-obsessed Charters and Caldicott ("a damn fine shot"!) prove themselves quite useful in a pinch.

• Miss Froy announces her true identity and takes off on foot, after enlisting Gilbert's help.

• Gilbert and Caldicott sneak up to the engine and commandeer the train.  The bad guys shoot the conductors and make chase in their car.  Gilbert and Caldicott must run the train themselves. They get themselves back on the main line and cross the border into safety.

• Gilbert and Iris return to London for a happy ending.