Rating: 
Summary: The Lady Vanishes but the Suspence never does!
Review: Put yourself in this situation:You get hit on the head and a kind old lady helps you on a train. You dose off for a minute only to find when you wake up that the old lady has disappeared and everyone on the train ever even saw her. They think your crazy because your talking about a person that you know exists and they think your bump on the head made you dillusional. (Or do they.) Looking for the lady could even cost you your life but in the process it's all good cause you fall in love. (Opps, what will your future husband say?) Give this movie a try! You will witness one of the masters best British films.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't buy the cheap version!
Review: The "Platinum Disc Corp." version is a waste of $8. The sound quality is horrible: even with the volume all the way up I could barely make out the dialogue. I guess they used a bad old print and didn't bother to clean up the audio track. They saved money, but you'd be wasting yours. (The one star is for this DVD transfer, not the movie, which is fun. I also recommend "Night Train to Munich," which reunites so much of the cast that it's almost a sequel.)
Rating: 
Summary: Light, funny, and very entertaining!
Review: The Lady Vanishes is a wonderful introduction to the films of Hitchock. It's a funny, suspenseful, and fast-paced crime caper brimming with mystery and over-the-top situations. It starts as a cheery lightweight romp, becomes a suspense-filled mystery, and ends as an engaging, but implausible, thriller. Most movies nowadays get stuck in a rut and become nothing more than a run-of-the-mill action extravaganzas set in a simple plot which serve as a basis to get the characters on screen. Hitchcock did something else: He cared about the plot, stretched it out and made it elaborately intriguing, and then filled it in with the characters afterwards.
This is Hitchcock at his freshest and lightest, as he spoons out a mouth-watering mystery and spy adventure to go along with the snappy dialogue and screwball romantic-comedy antics. It was adapted from Ethel Lina White's novel The Wheel Spins, and screenwriters Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder provide a witty and fun-filled script. To give away the story ruins the fun, but this is a very light, fluffy and enjoyable accomplishment from Hitchcock. I absolutely adore it. This is definitely Hitchock's best British film and one of my favorites from the Master of Suspense. It's a crime for anyone not to see it.
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Summary: Hitchcock's Funniest!
Review: THE LADY VANISHES is not Hitchcock's most suspenseful, most polished, or most ground-breaking. It is far from having the superior special effects his later efforts contain. But this Hitch flick is the funniest. It even surpasses his two pure comedy ventures, MR. and MRS. SMITH and THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY. Hitchcock's humor is always, let's say different, but it seems to be especially quirky in this film. There is something very funny about dapper English gentlemen holding their own in a gunfight while carrying on an enlightened conversation. One of my favorite scenes occurs when Caldicott and Charters are eating and chatting with Miss Froy. She tells her story about the mountains being like a family, with their snowcaps as their little hats. The camera shows the two gents staring at her with that priceless deadpan expression. Hilarious! There are fun little touches throughout, but the plot never requires you to swallow too much oddity. It's weird, but not completely out in left field. The actors are very fine, especially Dame May Whitty! I happened to watch both SUSPICION and THE LADY VANISHES over the same weekend. Whitty was in both, but was most enjoyable in the latter. How can a humdrum mother of the lead actress compare to an undercover British spy?! There's no question which is the better part. My second favorite of the Master's, right behind REAR WINDOW. A true early Hitchcock gem!
Rating:
Summary: a great release for Criterion and one of Hitchcock's best !
Review: The Lady vanishes is one of my most favorite Hitchcock films. In it a young British woman meets an older Biritsh woman on a train in continental Europe. Later, her friend is nowhere to be seen and when no one else remembers her being there, she suspects a conspiracy. It is another great one of the Pre WWII films that talks about Europe having 'problems' that will eventually lead to the second war.
Rating:
Summary: Light as air and just as necessary.
Review: The lady vanishes is so damn cute and precious you just want give it a permanet place in your dvd player. I won't give away any bit of the plot due to the adage a little goes a long way and with Hitchcock's dipping of his foot into this genre that he nearly invented! The film fly pass by as if a jet is propeling the snapy dialogue between Redgrave and Lockwood and the accents just add to the pop and sizle nature of the film. The plot turns are abundant and the final scene leaves you breathless. I have to say that this film is catalyst to his and many other films to this genre. If you don't own this film then you have to admit it's not just the Lady who has vanished it's your mind for not buying this film!
Rating:
Summary: Hitchcock's best British classic!
Review: THE LADY VANISHES is what I consider the best of Hitchcock before starting his career in Hollywood. The story starts out a little slow to make way for some character developement, but once things get rolling, it becomes a very mysterious thriller. I was very pleased with this Laserlight disc. The picture and sound quality is very good for the price. Of course I'm sure the Criterion release is far superior, but for the price, Laserlight gives you the most bang for the buck. Fans of Hitchock should definitely pick up this disc.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a must see
Review: The movie begins in a quaint Swiss hotel. A train has just been avalanched (is that how you spell that?) and there are no rooms left. At first our story seems to center two dim-witted British cricket enthusiasts, but then our focus changes to a young, witty American woman, Iris, who is engaged to a rich old codger whom she could care less about. She is on her way to meet him. In the inn, she meets the annoying yet witty young jerk (who of course is quite handsome and has a heart of gold) whose name is Gilbert Redmanr. After bantering with him for a while (his last jab is not to be missed- 'Confidentially, you're pretty much of a stinker yourself.'), it's finally time to leave. On the way to the train she sees an old woman whom she recognizes from the hotel. As she helps the woman onto the train, Iris is hit on the head. Miss Froy (that turns out to be the old woman's name) promises Iris' friends to take care of her. But while Iris is asleep, she dissapears! Assisted by none other than Gilbert ('If I'd known you were going to be on this train, I would have stayed in that hotel another week.'), she sets out to find Miss Froy. What follows is a suspenseful story (if sometimes easy to see through) where Gilbert gets to play detective. For instance: 'Let us marshall our facts, Watson, over a bit of shag tobacco.' Or, if you prefer: 'I just got an extremely idiotic idea.' At the same time, he woos Iris ('Do you like me?'). It ends with a touching scene in which Miss Froy is reunited with her young friends, Mr. and Mrs. Redmanr. (<: Some of the best quotes: 'Don't just stand there like a referee! DO SOMETHING! ' (Gilbert to Iris, while wrestling with an enemy) 'We'll never get home in time for the match now.' (To properly understand that one you must see the movie) 'Shut up that stupid whistle! I'm trying to remember a tune!' (Gilbert to one of the British gentlemen, while running a train) In short, one of Hitchcock's best, and FAR superior to the original 'Man who knew too much' and '39 Steps'.
Rating:
Summary: The best of the British Hitchcocks
Review: The train trip is inherently dramatic, a perfect venue for Hitchcock's brand of sophisticated comedy and suspense. Politically, the movie is an anti-isolationist diatribe, but as with most Hitchcock movies, the mechanism for suspense is second to the suspense itself. Michael Redgrave and Margaret Lockwood make an excellent team as they begin, in the classic screwball style, despising each other, and then, thrown together along the rails of Europe to outwit the clever fascists who have abducted the superannuated spy played by Dame May Whitty, they fall easily in love. The wonderful script gives the two much opportunity to flirt and bicker wittily. Truffaut said of The Lady Vanishes that each time he attempted to study its craft and direction, he became so caught up in the story itself, that it became nearly impossible to divert himself long enough analyze its form. It is a seamless, exciting, richly satisfying movie with a phalanx of marvelous character actors, including the droll pair of Radford and Wayne as the cricket-obsessed travellers skeptical of the apparent mystery. They get the best laughs. Overall, The Lady Vanishes ranks with any of Hitchcock and is most comparable to the fun and thrills of North by Northwest, but it's my personal favorite of all his great work (except maybe for Psycho).
Rating:
Summary: A Cinematic Masterpiece
Review: There's one thing that movies can do better than any other artistic medium. It's having you experience something from a character's point of view, and then having every other character in the movie say it never happened. Your empathy as a viewer is at its highest pitch: you saw what happened with your own eyes, and so you see it through the character's eyes as well, but then everyone denies it. This is the central scene on the train in THE LADY VANISHES. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in my opinion, is more cinematic than this. When the idea is used to trick the viewer (as in THE USUAL SUSPECTS), it's not as good (although still it's pretty good, because again it uses film in the most empathetic way possible). And when the trickery is fair--as in THE SIXTH SENSE--it can be superb. I rank THE LADY VANISHES right up there with VERTIGO, PSYCHO, and REAR WINDOW, as Hitchcock's greatest gifts to us, the moviegoers of the world. I would even add SHADOW OF A DOUBT to this pantheon. The thing I admire most about Hitchcock is that he was attracted to stories that showed what film could do as an art form. His best movies, in their different ways, display this for us. The movies I've mentioned would not be as good as novels or plays--and this is saying a great deal. It's a test, as a matter of fact, of what separates the film as an art medium from other artistic forms. The two directors who knew this best were Alfred Hitchcock and Walt Disney. It would be so terrific if someone were to come along someday who could be said to be their equal. Bottom line: THE LADY VANISHES is one of the best movies you will ever see, but please, it works at a slower pace than today's movies, so let it sink in for you, don't be in a hurry, EXPERIENCE it!
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