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Up to now in our survey of mystery fiction we’ve delved into fairly standard mystery tales. This week we explore a related mystery genre: the spy / espionage motif. Albert Hitchcock provide a different experience of piecing together the clues in his classic The Lady Vanishes (1938).
In this lesson I’ve provided a background on Hitchcock and his importance to the mystery genre, as well as tons of information (and trivia) about The Lady Vanishes.
Alfred Hitchcock's Influence on the Mystery Genre
Alfred Hitchcock's Influence on the Mystery Genre
Alfred Hitchcock is better known as the prolific producer/director of more than 60 suspenseful (and often macabre) films. But his work also had a profound influence on the mystery genre.
His career spanned six decades; he directed more than 50 films as well as numerous television dramas (Alfred Hitchcock Presents—1955-65). His films received 46 Academy Award nominations and six wins (he was nominated for best director five times, but he never won).
Hitchcock lived from 1899 to 1980. Like many of the early mystery writers we’ve read, his life spans transformative decades in American and British history. Consider the development of technology, the evolution of social class, and the world wars that occurred in his lifetime. How could society NOT change during these years? Artists like Hitchcock applied their unique approach to storytelling (in his case through film) to entertain new generations.
His Early Life
His Early Life
Hitchcock was born of humble stock in the east London. His father was a greengrocer with a stern sense of discipline who picked on Alfred. The family moved around during his childhood, and young Hitchcock attended a number of different schools. He was especially interested in geography. He was fascinated by maps and public transportation. He memorized all the stops on the Orient Express as well as the trams in London. Many of his movies include scenes on trains or trams.
When Hitchcock’s father died in 1914, Alfred took a job at Henley Telegraph and Cable Company. He started as a lowly clerk. He also began attending University of London, where he took design and drawing classes. This work eventually helped him get a job at the American film company called Famous Players, where he designed title cards for the silent film industry.
World War I changed the world and British society, and of course it also altered Hitchcock’s life. For one thing, he became interested in creative writing. He returned to his employment at the Henley Telegraph and served as business manager and founding editor of their in-house magazine. He had a few stories published as he polished his writing skills. He considered this job his first step toward the film industry, as he became a frequent movie-goer. He especially enjoyed the works of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Fritz Lang, and D.W. Griffith.
4 minute bio
In the early 1920s, Hitchcock began to freelance with independent producers, learning the skills of production and art design, as well as editor and writer. By 1922 he had directed his first film, “Mrs. Peabody.” He received his first solo direction credit a few years later (1925) with “The Pleasure Garden.” This early film showed the “bones” of what would make his movie structure famous. A common man was accused of being a killer, and he had to fight hard to prove his innocence.
Another important event occurred in the 1920s: Hitchcock’s marriage to film editor and script supervisor Alma Reville. Throughout his career, Reville collaborated on Hitchcock’s writing. She wrote and re-wrote many of his scripts.
Growing as a Director
Growing as a Director
Hitchcock’s first talking picture was released in 1929 –“Blackmail.” The topic was a murder investigation, leading to revealing a blackmail plan. Through the 1930s Hitchcock’s films involved suspenseful plots and dramatic settings, as well as sinister themes.
Hitchcock’s films were popular around the world. Let’s do some name-dropping. In 1935 he adapted the famous thrill “The 39 Steps” to film. His films cast famous actors like John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, and Carrie Grant. Hitchcock’s adaptations were based on great authors of the time, including W. Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward, Daphne du Maurier, and Joseph Conrad.
By the late 1930s, Hitchcock had reached his peak in Britain. When American producer David O Selznick offered Hitchcock a lucrative contract ($40,000 per film, which is the equivalent of about $770,000 today).
Later in his career he formed his own production company in 1948, Transatlantic Pictures. This gave him the ability to experiment further with his innovative use of cinematography, light, and color. Hitchcock signed on with other production companies over the years, including Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers.
His Influence
His Influence
Hitchcock’s films usually center on either murder or espionage, with deception, mistaken identities, and chase sequences complicating and enlivening the plots. Wry touches of humor and occasional intrusions of the macabre complete this mixture of cinematic elements. Three main themes predominate in Hitchcock’s films. The most common is that of the innocent man who is mistakenly suspected or accused of a crime and who must then track down the real perpetrator in order to clear himself (e.g., The Lodger and North by Northwest). The second theme is that of the guilty woman who enmeshes a male protagonist and ends up either destroying him or being saved by him (e.g., Vertigo and Marnie). The third theme is that of the (frequently psychopathic) murderer whose identity is established during the working out of the plot (e.g., Shadow of a Doubt and Psycho).
Hitchcock’s greatest gift was his mastery of the technical means to build and maintain suspense. To this end he used innovative camera viewpoints and movements, elaborate editing techniques, and effective soundtrack music, often supplied in his best films by Bernard Herrmann. He had a sound grasp of human psychology, shown both in his credible treatment of everyday life and in the tense and nightmarish situations encountered in his more-chilling films.
His ability to convincingly evoke human menace, subterfuge, and fear gave his psychological thrillers great impact while maintaining their subtlety and believability. He was also a master of something he called the “MacGuffin”—that is, the use of an object or person who, for storytelling purposes, keeps the plot moving along even though that thing or person is not really central to the story. (Examples include the titular steps in Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps and the microfilm in North by Northwest.)
Decades after his death, crime writers still model his works for narrative, meaning, and mood. Although much of his work was adapted from novels and short fiction, Hitchcock is the only filmmaker to receive a “grand master” Edgar award from the Mystery Writers of America, a lifetime achievement prize that has been given to Agatha Christie, Elmore Leonard and James M. Cain. Hitchcock also received a Raven Award from the mystery association for his “contribution” to the genre.
Otto Penzler, a leading editor of crime fiction and owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, says that Hitchcock’s mastery of showing ordinary people caught up in events beyond their control can be found in the fiction of Thomas H. Cook and Alan Furst, among others. He also cited Mary Higgins Clark as one who “fully understands the Hitchcock methodology.” Clark, one of the world’s top thriller writers, said that she admires Hitchcock’s “ability to create tension before the main character is even aware of the impending danger.”
“The reader is thinking ‘be careful’ as the protagonist, unsuspecting, puts herself in danger,” Clark wrote to the AP. “I think my book ‘A Cry in the Night’ is an example of this technique. Again, insinuating suspense before it is realised by the central character makes the reader feel helpless and creates wonderful drama.”
More About Hitchcock's Films
More About Hitchcock's Films
While he was known as the Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock tried his hand at different genres. His films always had the Hitchcock touch of suspense, but he dressed his thrillers with the trappings of other genres. Marnie is Hitchcock’s woman’s picture. Shadow of a Doubt is Hitchcock’s WWII domestic drama. Rebecca is Hitchcock’s gothic romance. The Birds is Hitchcock’s monster movie. And, To Catch a Thief is Hitchcock’s romantic-comedy. The Cary Grant-Grace Kelly jewel thief thriller is one of Hitchcock’s breeziest, wittiest, and most glamorous films. While the film is appreciated, it doesn’t have the same kind of reputation as other films in Hitchcock’s stellar 1950s-early 1960s period. It’s a really easy movie to watch and enjoy, even just for its visuals alone.
The Lady Vanishes
The Lady Vanishes
The Lady Vanishes changed the course of Alfred Hitchcock’s career. Up to this point Hitchcock’s work was made and produced in the U.K., but this 1938 film proved to American producer David O. Selznick that Hitchcock was Hollywood material.
This mystery thriller was based on Ethel Lina White’s 1936 novel, The Wheel Spins. There have been three re-makes over the years, but the Hitchcock version ranks in the top 31 British films ever made (The Lady Vanishes, 2025).
In short: the film is about an English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.
The Lady Vanishes was originally called The Lost Lady, and Irish director Roy William Neill was assigned by producer Edward Black to make it. A crew traveled to Yugoslavia to do background shots, but when the Yugoslav police accidentally discovered that they were not well-portrayed in the script, they kicked the crew out of the country, and Black scrapped the project. A year later, Hitchcock could not come up with a property to direct to fulfill his contract with Black, so he accepted when Black offered The Lost Lady to him.
The Writing
The Writing
Hitchcock worked with the writers to make some changes to tighten up the opening and ending of the story, but otherwise the script did not change much. As was the case with several of Hitchcock’s films, he collaborated with his wife Alma Reville on the script.
The plot of Hitchcock’s film differs considerably from White’s novel. In The Wheel Spins, Miss Froy really is an innocent 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. Iris’s mental confusion is due to sunstroke, not a blow to the head. In White’s novel, the wheel keeps spinning: the train never stops, and there is no final shoot-out.
Additionally, the supporting cast differs somewhat; for instance, in the novel, the Gilbert character is Max Hare, a young British engineer building a dam in the hills who knows the local language, and there is also a modern-languages professor character who acts as Iris’s and Max’s interpreter who does not appear in the film.
The plot has clear references to the political situation leading up to the Second World War. 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.
The Casting
The Casting
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. Lockwood was attracted to the heroines of Ethel Lina White's stories, and accepted the role.
Michael Redgrave was also unknown to the cinema audience, but was a rising stage star at the time. He was reluctant to leave the stage to do the film, but was convinced by John Gielgud to do so. As it happened, the film, Redgrave's first leading role, made him an international star. However, according to sources, Redgrave and Hitchcock did not get along; Redgrave wanted more rehearsals, while Hitchcock valued spontaneity more. The two never worked together again.
Alfred Hitchcock can be seen at Victoria Station, wearing a black coat and smoking a cigarette, near the end of the film.
Critics observe that Hitchcock's use of sound in The Lady Vanishes uses the "classical style" – that is, that the director eschews expressionistic sounds in favor of sounds heard in a realistic context. For example, when Iris faints on the train, rather than extraneous noises to denote delirium, only the sound of the train is heard. Another striking use of sound is how evil things are often heard before they are shown. 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".
Critical Reception
Critical Reception
When The Lady Vanishes opened in the UK it was an immediate hit, becoming the most successful British film to that date. It was also very successful when it opened in New York. In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin described the film as an "out of the ordinary and exciting thriller", praising Hitchcock's direction and the cast, especially Michael Redgrave, Paul Lukas and Dame May Whitty.
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." The American film critic and historian Leonard Maltin gave the film four out of four stars in his Movie Guide: "Delicious mystery-comedy; Hitchcock at his best..." and included it in his list of 100 Must-See Films of the 20th Century.
My Favorite Hitchcock (Review)
My Favorite Hitchcock (Review)
On top of a mesmerizing plot, perfect casting and the greatest comic duo in British cinema, this comedy thriller derives special urgency from the troubled times in which it was made.
Hitchcock and railways go together like a locomotive and tender. He loved them, they figure significantly in his work and never more so than in The Lady Vanishes. Much of what happens could only take place on a railway line – passengers delayed together by an avalanche; classes compartmentalized; strangers trapped together as they're transported across a continent; an engine driver killed in crossfire; a carriage disconnected and shunted on to a branch line; an intrepid hero struggling from one carriage to another outside a fast-moving train as other locomotives rush by; clues in the form of a name traced in the steam on a window, and the label on a tea packet briefly adhering to another window; and above all the enforced intimacy on this rhythmically seductive transport moving on its own tracks, independent of the changing landscape around it.
2 minute trailer...
The Lady Vanishes is one of the greatest train movies from the genre's golden era, challenged only in the master's oeuvre by North By Northwest for the title of best comedy thriller ever made. Except for the opening sequence at an inn in a central European village, it takes place on an express train that has only two official stops in the course of its journey across the authoritarian central European country of Banrika. During this suspenseful voyage, a middle-aged British spy posing as Miss Froy, an eccentric governess, and carrying the film's MacGuffin, is abducted by foreign agents, and her disappearance is covered up. Shot on a modest budget, largely at the small Gainsborough studio in Islington, it never seems cramped or corner-cutting (though it's calculatedly confined), and it zips along with the speed of the Eurostar.
When the project was revived and Hitchcock took over, the script, a great improvement on the book, was pretty well ready to shoot. The screenwriters, Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat, both much influenced by Hitchcock, had radically reworked the plot and the characters and most significantly had invented the insouciant cricket-loving Englishmen, Charters and Caldicott. As played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, they were to become the greatest comic duo ever created in the British cinema, national archetypes that stamped themselves on several generations of moviegoers. The role played by Wilfred Hyde-White in The Third Man was originally written by Graham Greene for Radford and Wayne, and they were much admired by Harold Pinter.
The casting, in which Hitchcock was closely involved, was perfection, most crucially that of Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave as Iris and Gilbert, the attractive romantic couple at the center, who meet cute, bicker beautifully and share a delightfully British sense of humor. Both became stars in this picture and proved themselves the equals of such sophisticated 30s Hollywood couples as Powell and Loy, Grant and Hepburn, Lombard and Gable.
But although The Lady Vanishes comes up fresh whenever one sees it, it's a film that derives its depth and urgency from the troubled times in which it was made. It was shot during the spring and summer of 1938 in the months leading up to Neville Chamberlain's capitulation at Munich, and Iris and Gilbert are passengers on a ship of fools, a compartment of British clowns adrift in a hostile Europe, surrounded by inimical foreigners in a world on the brink of war.
Gilbert is a politically naive musicologist collecting folk songs in the Balkans. Iris is a spoiled heiress returning to England to marry a chinless aristocrat for his title. In the adjoining compartments are a pompous barrister (Cecil Parker) and his mistress (Linden Travers), both cheating on their spouses and more concerned about their social status and professional future than their moral and civic responsibilities. Likewise, the blinkered Charters and Caldicott won't let more serious obligations stand in the way of getting back to England to see the test match at Old Trafford. Only Miss Froy (Dame May Whitty), the courageous little old lady, is there to carry the torch for Britain and bear the vital MacGuffin (in the form of a state secret encoded in a piece of folk music) that may save the nation.
Except for the barrister, who dies waving a white flag in the belief that the totalitarian enemy will respect Geneva conventions, they all turn up trumps at the end, just as Britain was to do at the last minute when war came in 1939. The expatriate Brits, however, are ultimately saved through the self-sacrifice of the only working-class English person aboard (Catherine Lacey). She's a woman disguised as a nun (the working-class Hitchcock's Catholicism comes out here) who has been inveigled into working for the evil schemer of Bandrika. As a prophetic commentary on its troubled times, on a world living under the storm clouds that are about to unleash the lightning of the second world war, The Lady Vanishes stands alongside two films of the following year that offer allegorical images of countries on the point of confronting cataclysmic events: John Ford's Stagecoach and Jean Renoir's La Règle du Jeu.
As You Watch the Film
As You Watch the Film
First, an apology: it was hard to find a decent copy of this old film. A Youtube version wasn’t bad, but the link disappeared (sometimes that happens). So hopefully you were able to hear and make sense of the Internet Archives or some other version. Here are few aspects to notice.
Setting
Keep in mind that sets and special effects were in primitive form back in 1938! Notice the details Hitchcock includes of the wintry landscape, the hotel interiors, a whole lot of train cars, stations, and other assorted venues.
Even with the awkward structures and sets, what feelings did Hitchcock convey?
The pre-war historical context is especially important. What do you think the audience (in the U.K. and U.S. was going through at the time regarding possible involvement in world war?
Point of View
Unless we have a first person narrator, a film is usually shown through the main characters’ eyes. Hitchcock has fun with point of view, and makes sure that we the audience anticipate what’s about to happen even before our heroes and heroines dive into action.
Characters
In later films Hitchcock created more complicated, tormented characters, but in this early film the characters are almost adorably stereotypical. We have quite a cast:
Gilbert--Bumbling musicologist, our hero
Iris—Spoiled and gullible. Interesting portrayal of a woman in the 30s, and the choices she can make
Miss Froy—More cunning than she appears, for sure. Spinsterly and old fashioned… or not?
Comical cricket pals
Hotel guests (Iris’s friends)
Train passengers
Spies
Good guys
Plot
This is a tricky one. You might have to take notes as you go. The general idea is to recover the lady who vanished….which is definitely not as easy as it sounds.
Theme(s)
We’ve seen this before: characters who aren’t who they appear to be.
Disguised identity (though this is first mummy imitation)
Betrayal
Loyalty
Love
…. To name a few
Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
This is probably more information on The Lady Vanishes than you want or need, but the back story and technical effects were so interesting I wanted to share them with you.
How would you say that Hitchcock’s influence has affected mystery books and movies you’ve experienced?
Looking forward to hearing your views!
Works Cited
Works Cited
Alfred Hitchcock. (2023). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock is Still Influencing Crime Fiction. (2018). Retrieved from https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/alfred-hitchcock-still-influencing-crime-fiction-1.2171404
Barson, M. (2023). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Hitchcock
Bergan, R. (2003). Frederick Knott. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jan/16/guardianobituaries.booksobituaries
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/508197/11-thrilling-facts-about-dial-m-murder
French, P. (2012). Retrieved from
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/24/my-favourite-hitchcock-lady-vanishes
The Lady Vanishes. (2025). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_Vanishes
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