2018 Blind Spot Series: The Lady Vanishes

I'm still trying to catch up and get all of my 2018 Blind Spot selections watched before the end of the year. Sorry to Sonia of Returning Videotapes in case I overwhelm her (not likely) with posts this month. In case you didn't know, she's our host for the Blind Spot Challenge. For my first December post, we're starting with a legendary director.

Why did I pick it? Alfred Hitchcock. When a person pretends decides to become a full-fledged cinephile, in some order, they seek out individual movies considered to be great, the filmographies of iconic actors, and movies by directors they're told are legends. Obviously, Hitchcock falls into that last category. Over the last decade or so since I've considered myself a movie buff I've watched a few of movies simply because he directed them. However, I haven't gone full bore into the his work. Having seen eight of his movies before this one, I'd say I have a pretty good grasp on his style, his strengths, and weaknesses. On the other hand, he's directed fifty plus full-length features, so I'm no expert. I've a long way to go before I can claim such a thing. When I start looking down the various lists of Hitchcock's greatest movies, this is one of the ones that turns up most often of those I haven't seen. It's also his last official British film before making the move to the grand ol' U.S. of A. That's as good a reason as any, so here we are.

When The Lady Vanishes starts, I'm struck by how whimsical it is. This isn't something I've experienced while watching other Hitchcock films. In fact, the first act feels much more like a bawdy, screwball comedy than the mystery I've been led to believe it is. We meet a bunch of people staying in a hotel in the fictional country of Bandrika that is obviously ill-equipped to handle them. We just keep meeting them, one after another. Some of them will be involved later when we get to the main plot, some will not. Their main function is to deliver sly jokes poking fun at the more prudish among us. As such things go, it's okay, but not really blowing my socks off. The problem is the that this part of the movie contains zero narrative thrust. A lot is happening, but it all feels pointless. Characters aren't really being developed. We just go back and forth between them. Eventually, we do get some development when we meet Iris (Margaret Lockwood) and Gilbert (Michael Redgrave). Iris is one of the prudish ones, complaining about Gilbert's loud music from the room below her and has him thrown out of the hotel. Instead of just leaving, he goes up to Iris's room, brings his stuff with him, and threatens to stay. She backs off and he is allowed to go back to his room. Needless to say, the two are not fond of one another. Finally, we meet Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty). She opens a window to listen to a guy below her singer belt out the tune he's passionately into. We see something she apparently doesn't - the poor guy gets murdered before he finishes his song.

After all this, we finally get to the plot of the movie. As Iris boards a train headed back to Britain, she is accidentally hit on the head and his helped to her seat by Miss Froy who sits with her in a booth with a couple who has a small child. Iris passes out and wakes up hours later to find Miss Froy gone. She looks for her, but no one on the train even admits to ever having seen Miss Froy. Iris gets the authorities on the train involved to no avail. Eventually, she meets up with none other than Gilbert, also a passenger on the train. He reluctantly agrees to help her and off the two go criss-crossing the train in search of Miss Froy.

This is the earliest produced of the Hitchcock films I've seen which leads to my belief that this is the director still learning to be the Master of Suspense. It might seem a bit strange to say this considering he made more than twenty movies before this, but this lacks the focus of his best work. After we board the train, the tone bounces back and forth between being the battle of the sexes farce it was at the hotel to the serious minded thriller the title suggests. The second act is particular riddled with this problem as the plot seems to start, stop, then start again several times over. The herky-jerkiness of it all makes it difficult to become fully immersed in the plight of these people. Whenever we start to get pulled into the mystery at the film's core, it switches into cute mode for a few minutes, effectively keeping us at arm's length. I didn't have that problem with later Hitch. In those films, he set a tone early, maintained it throughout, and used it to draw us progressively deeper into the world of the people on the screen. The Lady Vanishes never quite gets us there.

I suppose some allowances should be made for the fact this movie was made in 1938. However, I got the same feeling from another movie made over three decades later - Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left. That is the horror icon's first feature and suffers from the exact same problem. The constant shifts in tone from menacing to goofy detract from the overall aim of the picture. It's Craven not trusting that he won't overwhelm his audience by keeping the tension high. Ultimately, it's what makes it one of his lesser outings. The Lady Vanishes feels like Hitchcock dealing with the same insecurities. Just when he should be cranking things up another notch, he pulls back and lets all the air out of the balloon. When he gets back to the mystery, the film has to rebuild momentum all over again, only to have it stopped before it gets back up to sufficient speed. While watching, I couldn't help but think that had Hitchcock made this movie in the 50s or 60s, he would've approached the material far differently. He might have gotten rid of much of the opening act and replaced it with more intense scenes once the action moves to the train.

Still, there are a number of things The Lady Vanishes does right. Oddly enough, though the opposing sides of the coin don't really work in tandem, they function pretty well individually. The comedy, filled with double entendre and slick nods to the audience, has its moments even though it's not a full-on laugh riot. The mystery portion is more up Hitch's alley and is solidly handled with a few nice twists to keep us invested enough to stick with it through the end. In each of the two genres this movie travels in, the chemistry between Lockwood and Redgrave is interesting, if not explosive. They're an amusing screen couple to watch and give performances where each person's dialogue bounces happily off the other. It makes for a viewing experience that mixes in a decent amount of fun with the frustration it delivers. The short of it is this isn't a bad movie. It's just one that doesn't live up to the potential of its premise.

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