The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave.

[5] Although the director's three previous efforts had done poorly at the box office, The Lady Vanishes was widely successful, and confirmed American producer David O. Selznick's belief that Hitchcock indeed had a future in Hollywood cinema.

[3] After visiting the fictional country of Bandrika, English tourist Iris Henderson is returning home to get married, but an avalanche blocks the railway line.

In the same predicament are Charters and Caldicott, cricket enthusiasts anxious to see the last days of a Test match in Manchester, and Miss Froy, a governess and music teacher.

The next morning at the railway station, Iris is attempting to return Miss Froy's glasses when she is hit on the head by a large planter dropped from above.

Angry at her lover for his reluctance to pursue a divorce, Todhunter's mistress admits to seeing Miss Froy.

At the first stop, Dr. Hartz's patient, whose head is completely covered in bandages, is brought aboard on a stretcher and accompanied by an apparently deaf-mute nun.

A woman dressed exactly like Miss Froy, Madame Kummer, appears in her place and claims to have helped Iris after she was struck on the head.

Dr. Hartz shares a drink with them in the dining car and takes them back to a compartment, where he admits that he is involved in the conspiracy and tells them they have been drugged.

However the false nun, revealed to be a British woman in costume, did not put the drug into their drinks out of loyalty to her fellow countrymen.

The false nun escapes through a side door and switches the tracks but is shot in the leg; however, Caldicott and Gilbert manage to pull her up into the train before she is left behind.

In The Wheel Spins, Miss Froy really is an innocent old lady looking forward to seeing her octogenarian parents; she is abducted because she knows something (without realizing its significance) that would cause trouble for the local authorities if it came out.

The British characters, originally trying their hardest to keep out of the conflict, end up working together to fight off the jack-booted foreigners, while the lawyer who wishes to negotiate with the attackers by waving a white flag is shot and killed.

[3][11] At first, Hitchcock considered Lilli Palmer for the female lead, but went instead with Margaret Lockwood, who was at the time relatively unknown but was under contract to Gainsborough and being built into a star by Edward Black.

Alfred Hitchcock can be seen at Victoria Station, wearing a black coat and smoking a cigarette, near the end of the film.

[7] The film marks the first appearance of the comedy double-act Charters and Caldicott (played by Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford).

The evil Dr. Hartz often is first heard before he appears on screen, representing an aural intrusion "not so much an invasion of privacy as of security".

[18] Leslie Halliwell gave it four of four stars: "Superb, suspenseful, brilliantly funny, meticulously detailed entertainment."

As well as the chemistry between the two leads, the film has some of Hitchcock's best character parts, with Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne particularly good value as the cricket obsessed Charters and Caldicott.

[20]Pauline Kael wrote: "Alfred Hitchcock's murder mystery...is directed with such skill and velocity that it has come to represent the quintessence of screen suspense."

[7][23] The Guardian called the film "one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era", and a contender for the "title of best comedy thriller ever made" .

[31] Despite this, various licensed releases have appeared on Blu-ray, DVD and video on demand worldwide from the likes of Network Distributing in the UK and The Criterion Collection in the United States.