While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.While travelling in continental Europe, a rich young playgirl realizes that an elderly lady seems to have disappeared from the train.
- Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
- Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
- Frank Launder(screen play)
- Stars
- Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
- Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
- Frank Launder(screen play)
- Stars
May Whitty
- Miss Froy
- (as Dame May Whitty)
Selma Vaz Dias
- Signora Doppo
- (as Zelma Vas Dias)
Catherine Lacey
- The Nun
- (as Catherine Lacy)
- Ethel Lina White(based upon the story by: "The Wheel Spins")
- Sidney Gilliat(screen play)
- Frank Launder(screen play)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaIn an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, Alfred Hitchcock revealed that this movie was inspired by a legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880s, at the time of the Great Exposition: "The woman was taken sick and they sent the girl across Paris to get some medicine in a horse-vehicle, so it took about four hours. When she came back she asked, 'How's my mother?' 'What mother?' 'My mother. She's here, she's in her room. Room 22.' They go up there. Different room, different wallpaper, everything. And the payoff of the whole story is, so the legend goes, that the woman had bubonic plague and they dared not let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied." The urban legend, known as the Vanishing Hotel Room, also formed the basis of one segment of the German portmanteau film Eerie Tales (1919), So Long at the Fair (1950) (in which the missing person was the young woman's brother as opposed to her mother) and Into Thin Air (1955), starring Hitchcock's daughter Patricia Hitchcock.
- GoofsIn the noisy dancing scene above Lockwood's hotel room, the clarinet is shown with the mouthpiece turned with the reed upwards. Normally the mouthpiece is turned so that the reed is downwards, but in some European folk traditions the clarinet was played with the mouthpiece "upside-down".
- Quotes
Gilbert: Can I help?
Iris Henderson: Only by going away.
Gilbert: No, no, no, no. My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble. He even carried that as far as marrying Mother.
- Crazy creditsClosing credits: The Characters in "THE LADY VANISHES" were played by:
- Alternate versionsA brief segment where a hotel maid bends down to pick up a hat from under a hotel bed is missing from most US releases, including Criterion's first official DVD and all bootlegs. It's intact in all official non-US releases and has been restored for Criterion's 2-disc remastered DVD.
- ConnectionsEdited from Oh, Mr. Porter! (1937)
Review
Featured review
Classic Hitchcock!
Dame Mae Witty gives a memorable performance as the old woman who goes missing. The rest of the cast is great with Margaret Lockwood as the woman she befriends on the train. Sir Michael Redgrave also is wonderful as the obvious love interest of Lockwood. The film is truly filled with Hitchcock's stamp all over it. He takes a simple story and makes us not only intriguing but entertaining as well. They remade the film again in 1978 more than 40 years after this film debuted in British cinema. This classic film should not be mixed up with that one. I enjoyed this film. It had its humorous moments. I think this film is really wonderful to watch without being too much. Nowadays filmmakers can take note by Hitchcock's genius and talent. You do not need grand special effects today to create a memorable film but great actors and decent writing. This film is a great film about a good old fashioned mystery without deterring the audience. This film is good old fashioned movie making at its best.
helpful•4115
- Sylviastel
- Dec 16, 2005
Details
Box office
- 1 hour 36 minutes
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