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The Lady Vanishes



In Alfred Hitchcock’s most quick-witted and devilish comic thriller, the beautiful Margaret Lockwood, traveling across Europe by train, meets a charming spinster (Dame May Whitty), who them seems to disappear into thin air. The younger woman turns investigator and finds herself drawn into a complex web of mystery and high adventure. Also starring Michael Redgrave, The Lady Vanishes remains one of the great filmmaker’s purest delights.

Disc Features:

- High-definition digital restoration
- Audio commentary by film historian Bruce Eder
- Crook’s Tour, a 1941 feature-length adventure film starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne as Charters and Caldicott, their beloved characters from The Lady Vanishes
- Excerpts from François Truffaut’s legendary 1962 audio interview with director Alfred Hitchcock
- Mystery Train, a video essay about Hitchcock and The Lady Vanishes by Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff
- Stills gallery of behind-the-scenes photos and promotional art
- PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and Hitchcock scholar Charles Barr


Original DVD:
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New DVD:
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According to this, The Criterion edition of The Lady Vanishes is actually missing a few seconds of footage.

There was a big discussion about this in a previous version of this forum, but with the site crashes, it was lost. It was mentioned in the discussion that the footage was complete in an UK DVD and we were wondering if the footage was going to be included in the print of the much delayed MGM release of the film. I even think somebody asked JM about this, but I don't remember what his response was, if any.

An interesting DVD Beaver comparison between the original release and the version included in the Janus Box Set. No mention on whether the short scene missing from the 1998 disc is included in the box set disc but the running times are interesting - 1:35:06 for the ealier disc compared to 1:35:51 for the new one. Could this running time be the scene of the maid fiddling about under the bed in front of Charters and Caldicott?

Could someone with the box set check and tell us if this is the case?

Ebay, anyone? Just got this:

Curtis Tsui at Criterion wrote:Thank you for contacting us about the LADY VANISHES reissue. I'm producing it, so I'm happy to answer your question [...] The new master of the film is beautiful -- and yes, it does include the six odd seconds of footage that was missing in the original Criterion release -- and there will be a terrific new video "essay" featuring Leonard Leff (HITCHCOCK AND SELZNICK), in addition to a slightly updated commentary with Bruce Eder. I'm working on other possible supplement(s) as well...

Best,
Curtis Tsui

Curtis Tsui at Criterion wrote:Thank you for contacting us about the LADY VANISHES reissue. I'm producing it, so I'm happy to answer your question [...] The new master of the film is beautiful -- and yes, it does include the six odd seconds of footage that was missing in the original Criterion release -- and there will be a terrific new video "essay" featuring Leonard Leff (HITCHCOCK AND SELZNICK), in addition to a slightly updated commentary with Bruce Eder. I'm working on other possible supplement(s) as well...

Best,
Curtis Tsui

Great news! I've been holding off on buying all the 'early' releases in hopes they would get reissues. Surely 'The Seventh Seal' , 'Grand Illusion', and 'The Samurai Trilogy' can't be far behind?

I'm a little ambivalent about this. If the remastered picture is the same as the one that appeared in the Janus box, then the Concorde release is still far superior.

I doubt that - the Janus boxset version looks like the same 1998 master with a fresh, cleaner encoding and a slight brightness and contrast adjustment. There's no way Criterion would let such whacking great scratches and splices on their master nowadays.

Narshty wrote:I doubt that - the Janus boxset version seems to be exactly the same 1998 master with a fresh, cleaner encoding and a slight brightness adjustment. This re-release seems to be completely new from top to bottom.

But it's pictureboxed. Surely a sign of being the new transfer, no?
I hope I'm wrong. This is one of my all-time favorite films, and I'd love for Criterion's edition to be the definitive one.

If I could figure out what his email is, I'd ask him.

Funny that this thread should pop back up literally minutes after the film was broadcast on BBC2, it was the first time I'd ever seen it. Good to hear a new version is coming, I'd been put off before because of the lack of anything really definitive.

Could this means that other Hitchcocks films may be on the way also? I love The Lady Vanishes, but I don't think a re-release by it self would be very profitable for Criterion.

Gigi M. wrote:Could this means that other Hitchcocks films may be on the way also? I love The Lady Vanishes, but I don't think a re-release by it self would be very profitable for Criterion.

I'd love to see a few more Hitchcocks added to the collection, especially the earlier films like Blackmail (Sound and Silent), a definitive The Man Who Knew Too Much, and a good release of The Lodger. I was hoping the Lionsgate release from a few months ago would have at least one of those films but alas, we got great versions of other films.

This is now out-of-print, no doubt making way for the new release.

mogwai wrote:This is now out-of-print, no doubt making way for the new release.

December release maybe?

Can anyone confirm that the new DVD will contain a brand new transfer, or will it contain the one used in the Janus boxset?

daveyp wrote:Can anyone confirm that the new DVD will contain a brand new transfer, or will it contain the one used in the Janus boxset?

Wasn't the one used in the Janus set brand-new? I would imagine that's the one they'll be using.

CSM126 wrote:

daveyp wrote:Can anyone confirm that the new DVD will contain a brand new transfer, or will it contain the one used in the Janus boxset?

Wasn't the one used in the Janus set brand-new? I would imagine that's the one they'll be using.

Same transfer I'm sure, but it'll be a new encode (obviously) with potentially new mastering/digital restoration. Either way though, it won't be the old transfer and more than likely won't look like the Janus box version.

So is this bonus film "Crook's tour" a spin-off of The Lady Vanishes? Has anyone seen it who would like to comment?

ianungstad wrote:So is this bonus film "Crook's tour" a spin-off of The Lady Vanishes? Has anyone seen it who would like to comment?

After the success of Hitchcock's film, Charters and Caldicott were sort of spun off into a series of films, the best of which is probably Carol Reed's entertaining Night Train to Munich. These two characters are the only concrete link, but the film was obviously intended to replicate as many successful elements of the previous film as possible. The series is somewhat odd in that the spin-off characters remain secondary (in Night Train they're marginally more central than in The Lady Vanishes, but Margaret Lockwood and Rex Harrison are the stars). I've never seen Crook's Tour, but it looks like the only one in the series in which C&C were the main characters.

Oh, I get it, so they're like Jay and Silent Bob! Right? Huh? anyone...?

They also pop up in the otherwise entirely serious Millions Like Us (1943) - this was the directorial debut of Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat (who wrote the other films), so I imagine they were used as some kind of good luck charm: there's no other apparent reason for them to appear.

I hope this will be the start of the re-release of the other out-of-print Hitchcock Criterions like Notorious and Rebecca.

malcolm1980 wrote:I hope this will be the start of the re-release of the other out-of-print Hitchcock Criterions like Notorious and Rebecca.

Completely different rights situation, so it doesn't necessarily follow.

For what it's worth.

malcolm1980 wrote:I hope this will be the start of the re-release of the other out-of-print Hitchcock Criterions like Notorious and Rebecca.

I don't know what else they could add to those, and the transfers are fantastic.