Blu-ray Review: The Lady Vanishes – The Criterion Collection

Spine # 3

Distributor: Criterion Collection (USA)

Release Date: December 06, 2011

Region: Region A

Length: 01:20:59

Video: 1080P (MPEG-4, AVC, 23.976fps, 26.4GB)

Main Audio: English Mono (PCM 1.0, 48kHz, 1152kbps)

Subtitles: English

Ratio: 1.34:1

Bitrate: 35Mbps

Notes: This release is also available in the DVD format.

“It is a very light film… The story is inspired by that legend of an Englishwoman who went with her daughter to the Palace Hotel in Paris in the 1880’s, 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, and 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 daren’t let anybody know she died, otherwise all of Paris would have emptied. That was the original situation and pictures like Lady Vanishes were all variations on it.”  —Alfred Hitchcock (Hitchcock/Truffaut)

The Lady Vanishes won the director a New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Director and helped pave the way for his American career. It was also a phenomenal critical success in both Britain and America. A review by Frank S. Nugent for The New York Times encapsulates the critical opinion of the period perfectly:

“Just in under the wire to challenge for a place on the year’s best ten is The Lady Vanishes (at the Globe), latest of the melodramatic classics made by England’s greatest director, Alfred Hitchcock. If it were not so brilliant a melodrama, we should class it as a brilliant comedy. Seeing it imposes a double, a blessedly double, strain: when your sides are not aching from laughter your brain is throbbing in its attempts to outguess the director. Hitch occasionally relents with his rib-tickling, but his professional honor would not brook your catching up with his plot…

…We cannot conceal our admiration over the manner in which Mr. Hitchcock and his staff have pieced it together. There isn’t an incident, be it as trivial as an old woman’s chatter about her favorite brand of tea, that hasn’t a pertinent bearing on the plot. Everything that happens is a clue. And, having given you fair warning, we still defy you to outguess that rotund spider, Hitch. The man is diabolical; his film is devilishly clever.

His casts are always neglected by reviewers, which isn’t fair, especially since he has so perfect a one here. Honors belong, of course, to his priceless cricketers, Caldicott and Charters—or Naughton Wayne and Basil Radford—whose running temperature about “how England is doing” makes the most hilarious running gag of the year. Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave as the puzzled young woman and her ally are just the sort of pleasant, intelligent young people we should expect to find going through a casual Hitchcock gesture to boy-meets-girl.

The others are equally right—Dame May Whitty as the surprising Miss Froy, Paul Lukas as the specialist, Cecil Parker, Linden Travers—in fact, all the others. Did we say The Lady Vanishes was challenging the best ten? Let’s amend it: the bid has been accepted.” —Frank S. Nugent (New York Times, December 26, 1938)

A few days later, a review in Variety sited Alfred Hitchcock’s direction as the sole reason that the film succeeds so admirably:

“The story [from “The Wheel Spins” by Ethel Lina White] is sometimes eerie and eventually melodramatic, but it’s all so well done as to make for intense interest. It flits from one set of characters to another and becomes slightly difficult to follow, but finally all joins up.

This film, minus the deft and artistic handling of the director, Alfred Hitchcock, despite its cast and photography, would not stand up for Grade A candidacy.” —Variety (December 31, 1938)

The film stands up against many of the American films of that same year. For example, Frank Capra’s You Can’t Take It With You (which won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director) shows its age more than Hitchcock’s British effort (even if some of the early model work does seem antiquated today). However, there are some impressive special effects shots in the film as well, and those who enjoy 1930s cinema know that these old school techniques can be part of a film’s charm.

The Presentation: 

4.5 of 5 MacGuffins

Criterion has earned a reputation for classy packaging and The Lady Vanishes easily validates this reputation. The disk is contained in a clear shell with amazing cover artwork.

An elegant chapter menu that clearly lists the discs 26 chapters is included and can be seen when one opens the case. Better yet, Criterion has included a gorgeous 24 page booklet that features two worthwhile essays by Geoffrey O’Brien and Charles Barr. This book is gorgeously illustrated with photography from the film. The final pages of the booklet include interesting information about the transfer, production credits, and thank various people who made the release possible.

The animated menus are nice and in the Criterion style. They employ audio of a train in motion and are really quite attractive.

It is a very nice presentation and I can find no complaints whatsoever.

Picture Quality:

4.5 of 5 MacGuffins

“The Lady Vanishes is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format. This high-definition transfer was created on a Spirit Datacine from a 35mm composite fine-grain master positive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI’s DRS and Pixel Farm’s PFClean, while Image Systems’ DVNR was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction.” —The Criterion Collection (Booklet)

Criterion’s efforts have paid off. The meticulous handling of their digital restoration should be admired. The Lady Vanishes has never looked more beautiful than it does on this release. Those who have seen any of the shoddy public domain releases will consider the transfer a minor miracle. Criterion has earned praise in nearly every area imaginable. Contrast is lovely, detail is surprisingly stunning, and print damage is minimal. There is the occasional blemish evident, but these are never distracting and are relatively few in number.

Sound Quality:

4 of 5 MacGuffins

“The original monaural soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from a 35 mm optical track print. Clicks, thumps, hiss, and hum were manually removed using Pro Tools HD. Crackle was attenuated using AudioCube’s integrated workstation” —The Criterion Collection (Booklet)

The disc’s lossless audio track is also much improved by Criterion’s efforts. There is little to no perceivable hiss and dropouts seem to be non existent. I do not recall hearing any pops or any other major issues with the track. The music is sometimes flat and the dialogue is sometimes muffled, but I feel that these issues are evident in the source and one cannot blame Criterion.

Special Features:

4 of 5 MacGuffins

Feature Length Commentary Track with Bruce Eder

Bruce Eder’s scholarly commentary covers a wide range of territory. He contributes background information about the talent, anecdotes about the production, and a healthy dose of film theory. One also learns about the socio-political climate at the time of the production and how the film comments on these issues.

Mystery Train — (23:59)

Leonard Leff’s “visual essay” is filled with interesting information and insights about this important film and its production. The information is illustrated with related still photographs, artwork, and footage from the film.

Excerpt from Truffaut/Hitchcock Interviews — (10:06)

People who have read Truffaut’s book length interview will find this audio interview familiar. Helen G. Scott’s interpretation of both the questions and the answers can become tiresome, but the conversation itself is extremely interesting. The audio plays over a montage of stills and footage from the film, which increases ones enjoyment of the interesting information being presented.

Crook’s Tour — (01:20:59) — [1080P]

Crooks Tour is a feature-length film starring Charters and Caldicott that was released in 1941.

The characters became so popular after The Lady Vanishes that they were included in Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich in 1940, John Baxter’s Crooks Tour in 1941, and they even made cameo appearances in Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder’s Millions Like Us in 1943.

Crooks Tour is the only film that focused on Charters and Caldicott as protagonists and was based on a popular radio serial by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. It obviously never approaches the brilliance of The Lady Vanishes, but the film does hold historical interest and works nicely as a supplement to the main feature.

Photo Gallery

A gallery of Posters, lobby cards, and “behind the scenes” photographs from The Lady Vanishes completes the list of worthwhile supplements included on the disc.

Final Words:

The Lady Vanishes is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s essential British films and Criterion’s excellent Blu-ray release belongs on every cinephile’s shelf.

Reviewed by: Devon Powell