The Lady Vanishes
Short description
The Lady Vanishes is set in a fictional Central European country shortly before the Second World War. A group of rail travellers is held up when an avalanche blocks the line, and they spend the night at a small hotel, where the young Englishwoman Iris Henderson meets Miss Froy, an elderly former governess. Once the journey resumes, Iris dozes off and wakes to find her companion gone. The other passengers insist the old woman was never aboard, and Iris sets out to prove them wrong, helped by Gilbert, a young musician travelling on the same train. Their search draws them into a wider intrigue.
Alfred Hitchcock directed, working from a screenplay by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, with Edward Black producing. It is the eleventh of the forty-three films he directed in chronological order, following Young and Innocent and preceding Jamaica Inn. Margaret Lockwood plays Iris, Michael Redgrave plays Gilbert, and May Whitty plays Miss Froy, with Paul Lukas as Dr. Hartz and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as the cricket-obsessed Charters and Caldicott. The credited cast runs to twenty-seven names.
The film mixes comedy and romance with its mystery, and it holds a strong reputation. On IMDb it rates 7.7 out of 10 from around 61,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 7.4 from roughly a thousand votes. A critics' rating of 8.5 out of 10 from fifty-two reviews places it above both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Gilbert says that he once drove a miniature model of a steam locomotive on the Dymchurch line. Romney, Hythe, and Dymchurch railways actually exist. They are miniature versions of railways (approximately 1/3 the normal size) and are located in southeastern England. Steam locomotives are still used on these railways, making journeys of 13 miles.
- Since the action takes place in the fictional Bandrika, Boris, the hotel administrator, speaks with a non-existent Bandrikan accent. This does not prevent him from uttering the common Jewish expression "Oy vey is mir" ("Woe is me!") in one of the dialogues.
- The film was shot in a pavilion at the Islington studio, approximately 30 meters long.
- Hitchcock's cameo – a man at the end of the film, dressed in a black coat and smoking a cigar at Victoria Station.
- The non-existent country through which the main characters travel by train is named by Miss Froy at the beginning of the film; she says: "Bandria is one of the few uncharted corners of Europe." Throughout the film, three stations can also be identified: Zolnay, Dravka, and Morsken.
- Initially, in 1936, the film was directed by Roy William Neal, who shot scenes in Yugoslavia. The first footage depicted marching soldiers advancing on a flock of geese struggling in the water. Yugoslav authorities considered this an insult to the honor of the national army, confiscated the script, and expelled the film crew from the country. After this, production of the film was halted for 2 years. Alfred Hitchcock then continued it.
- After filming, Norton Wayne and Basil Radford often appeared together and also hosted their own radio program.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
