The Lady Vanishes (U)

One of the last films Hitchcock shot in England launches a season of Margaret Lockwood films at the NFT. She plays a fetching young miss on her way home via a trans-Europe express to be married in London. On board she is befriended by a genteel English governess, who then inexplicably disappears, and none of the other passengers will admit to having seen her – none but an eccentric musician (Michael Redgrave), who helps her unravel a dastardly conspiracy.

The last 20 minutes are derailed by a preposterous lurch into espionage drama; the real fun and games reside in the byplay of the two Pall Mall clubmen (played by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) who are far more exercised by the Test score than the possibility of a Foreign Intrigue. Their drollery is sometimes Wodehousian.