The Lady Vanishes story

movie: The Lady Vanishes · 1938

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about a beautiful 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.

8 total · 1 choice · 7 major

Theme	Level	Motivation
what if I told the truth and nobody would believe me	choice	Iris was perplexed and flustered when she found that no one but herself professed to remember Miss Froy, the titular vanishing lady.
communicating with someone who speaks a different language	major	It was a recurring theme that the various British protagonists had trouble making themselves understood by the central Europeans among whom they journeyed.
cricket	major	Charters and Caldicott, English cricket enthusiasts, were anxious to see the last days of the Test match in Manchester.
espionage	major	As the plot unraveled, it became clear that central conflict in the movie was between British snoops and the officials of the fictional country that was their target.
foreign customs	major	It was a recurring theme that the central European inhabitants had customs that were peculiar to the various British ladies and gentlemen.
medical occupation	major	One of the main antagonists is the evil neurosurgeon, Dr. Hartz.
the hospitality industry	major	A good part of the story took place in a rural hotel and heavily featured the manager and one of the maids.
what it is like to travel	major	The story imagines what it might have been like to travel across central Europe by train in the early 20th century.