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Classic Pick: The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Unfortunately for the world at large, there is only one Alfred Hitchcock film available for streaming on Netflix. Fortunately, it is one of his best: The Lady Vanishes, Hitchcock’s final British effort and the one that effectively got him the gig with Selznick in America.

The Lady Vanishes tells the story of Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood), a young woman journeying from the fictional country of Bandrika to England, where she has intentions of marrying a “blue-blooded cheque-chaser.” En route, Iris gets hit on the head and subsequently meets Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), with whom she shares a train compartment. When Iris awakens from a nap, she discovers that Miss Froy is missing…and no one on the train remembers seeing her. She suspects foul play, enlisting the help of charming musicologist Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) to investigate.

The Lady Vanishes contains so much charm and effervescence that it’s difficult to boil down to the essentials. The first twenty minutes of the film play like a screwball comedy when an avalanche strands a disparate group of people in a mountain hotel. These characters will all play a role in the solution of the mystery, as each has a reason for questioning Miss Froy’s existence. The film bubbles over with excellent character actors, including Naunton Wayne, Basil Radford, and Paul Lukas (if you don’t know those names, you might still recognize the faces). There are the requisite “Hitchcockian” and scenes involving a fight with magicians’ equipment, the image of a poisoned drink that Orson Welles claimed inspired his love of deep focus, and a final act that answers all the questions in an exciting and amusing way. If all you’ve ever seen of Hitchcock are the required “masterpieces,” check out The Lady Vanishes and see how it all began.