The Lady Vanishes
Waltzes from Vienna
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The Lady Vanishes
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
With Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, Dame May Whitty.
UK, 1938, 35mm, black & white, 96 min.
Print source: Park Circus/ITV
One of Hitchcock’s last and most popular British films before departing for Hollywood permanently, The Lady Vanishes is also one of his lightest, most delectably witty creations. Containing both a critique and a celebration of British insularity and classism, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder’s disarmingly charming script embroils a band of strangers into a political espionage plot within the microcosmic confines of a moving train. Its mirrored layers of imagination, deception and camouflage craftily conspire to unify a brisk comedy of manners with a political thriller – Hitchcock’s perfect ode to the UK with suggestive shadows of the darker Hollywood productions to come.
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Waltzes from Vienna
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
With Jessie Matthews, Edmund Gwenn, Fay Compton.
UK, 1934, 35mm, black & white, 81 min.
Print source: British Film Institute
Originally intended by the producers to be a vehicle for Jessie Matthews, a famous star of the British stage and screen, Waltzes From Vienna was dismissed by Hitchcock as one of his lesser efforts. Undertaken when his career was ebbing after the success of The Lodger and Blackmail, Hitchcock did admit that his biopic of Josef Strauss, Jr. – focused on his composition of “The Blue Danube” – allowed him “opportunities for working out ideas in the relation of film and music.” Lacking both the director’s approval and his distinctively suspenseful storyline, this period piece has long been ignored. Seen today, it is a charming example of Hitchcock’s flair for comedy.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Vertigo
To Catch a Thief
The Trouble with Harry
The Paradine Case
Stage Fright
Rebecca
Notorious
Rear Window
Dial M for Murder
Lifeboat
Saboteur
Murder!
Family Plot
Under Capricorn
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Spellbound
Strangers on a Train
Torn Curtain
Suspicion
Shadow of a Doubt
