The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Classic, early Hitchcock spy thriller in which some old lady (Dame May Whitty ) impossibly vanishes aboard a train (elements from which have been used by others ad infinitum.)

The only person who is seemingly aware of her disappearance and admits to having seen her is a young lady (Margaret Lockwood ) who has just suffered from a blow to the head.

Could it be a hallucination?

A folk musicologist (Michael Redgrave) teams up with her in order to find out.

What motive could everyone (an assorted lot of character comprised of a couple of adulterers, a brain surgeon (Paul Lukas,) a mute nurse/nun, a duchess, a magician, a couple of (gay?) cricket obsessed Englishmen (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne,) a waiter or maybe even the whole kitchen staff, etc.) who denies having seen her possibly have for lying?

The mystery does not really last that long, but not to worry, even after it’s solved the thrills have only just begun.

Lots of nifty miniature work, and even the rear projection, for all that it is fairly obvious, never detracts from the suspense.

The story is set in one of those fictitious European countries beloved by early film and ends with a thinly disguised call to arms against Hitler (people who choose to remain neutral come to a sticky end, those who die heroically are lauded.)

Entertaining, witty, funny, sexy, romantic.

A classic, and arguably the best film of Hitchcock’s British period.