The “The Lady Vanishes” (1938), is one of the most beautiful films of Alfred Hitchcock along with the “39 steps”, the state of the art, of the so called English period of his career. 1936 the duet of Sidney Gilliat and Frank Lauder (later on well-known directors, as well as screenwriters), revised for the big screen the novel of Ethel Lina White “The Wheel Spins”, through which they wished to denounce the external politics of the isolation of Chamberlain regarding what was going on in Europe. The film was about to be made by Roy William Neal, when the second crew that had gone to Yugoslavia for some shots on site, was chased out of the country and therefore, the production had to stop for a while, to continue two years later under the direction of Hitchcock, who had a contract for one more picture with the company Gaumont British. There is no doubt, though, that the English maitre has found in this picture things which interested him in particular, such as the testing of the logic of the viewer, the adoration of the director to trains, but also this unique combination of humor and suspense, something which makes Hitchcock a master in this kind.

The “The Lady Vanishes” relies as a plot in what Hitchcock calls a “MacGaffin”: “It is a gimmick as we call it. Here goes the MacGaffin story: you are aware that Kipling was writing pretty often about India and the Englishmen who were fighting against the natives of that country in the Afghanistan’s frontiers. In all these spy stories the main theme was the stealing of the plans of the fortress. The fortress is “MacGaffin”. So, we have given the name MacGaffin to all of this kind of adventures: stealing of papers or documents, of secret plans… it is not of any importance. The rational ones, would torture themselves in vain to find the truth which lies in a MacGaffin, since there is no any importance behind it. I have always been thinking that in my job the “papers”, the “documents” or the “plans of a fortress” must be of great importance as the characters of the movie were involved, but none to me, the narrator” (From the book “Hitchcock / Triffaut”, Publication Hipsilon).

MacGaffin, in the mentioned picture is a spy message, which is delivered into a coded music line to Mrs. Froy, and old governess, who leaves by train from one country of the Balkans with the destination of London, but during this trip, she disappears. The whole intrigue constitutes a challenge in common sense. Hitchcock observes: “If we remember our apparent friends, they could wonder why we would trust a message to an old lady who could be easily terminated? Or again, why these people of the anti- espionage did not send the message with a trained pigeon?” Once again the English maitre challenges the common sense of the viewer as to test it, by setting an ingenious game between the apparent and the truth, where nothing is accidental.

What brings into action the fairy tale of the movie, are the adventures and the disguises of one of the main characters (Mrs. Froy), her disappearance is the reason for another woman (Mrs. Irish) to get close to a man (Gilbert the musician) and the awakening of her sexual desire (the heroine is going to London in order to marry someone who she is not in love with). Before that, though, the viewer is curious to find out what has happened, that desire is transferred to the couple of the movie, who as young Sherlock Holms, they involve themselves into an amateur’s but very effective police research. Mrs. Froy, therefore, disappears on a train which travels, all doubt her existence, but anyway, what Lacant used to say : “What is hidden is nothing else than the one which is missing from its place”. So, Mrs. Froy is found once again: a. under the substance of another important character (her signature in the window of the train), b. under the substance of another woman who is wearing her clothes, c. as of a dead body (the patient wrapped in bandages) and d. of an Angel – woman, who appears as miraculously as she disappears, in order to pass with unbelievable easiness the traps of her enemies and finds herself in London just before the heroes do! A big part of the success of the movie stands on the brilliant use of the supporting chara-cters, such as the couple of snobbish Englishmen who are interested only in the cricket championship. But also the performances are great as the ones of Dame May Whitty playing Mrs. Froy, of Margaret Lockwood playing the heroine, of Michael Redgrave in his first debut on the big screen, of Paul Loucas playing the psychiatrist who is in charge of all spies, of Bazil Radford and of Nonton Wane who are playing the English couple, etc. The movie was a huge success and it made the film critics declare Hitchcock as the biggest British Director. Orson Wells said that he saw it eleven times, while it was one of the favorite movies of Francois Triffaut. The story was been imitated many times. A remake of 1979 (Murder in the train of 12.15) with Angela Lansbury, Sybil Shepard, Eliot Gould, Herbert Lom, directed by Anthony Page, who copied every single spot of the original one, was filmed although without being able to recreate its unique atmosphere.
Babis Aktsoglou – film critic