STATE THEATRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 March 1939, Page 2

STATE THEATRE

“THE LADY VANISHES.” Alfred Hitchcock, one of Britain's foremost directors, has welded the silent to the talking screen for the opening of his latest picture, Gainsborough’s “The Lady Vanishes,” showing tonight at the State Theatre after a five weeks record season in Wellington. The credit titles are superimposed on a snow-clad mountain view. When the titles come to an end the view remains, and the camera swoops down on to a railway line blocked by snow, the streets of a Continental village, and into a hotel lobby where the passengers from the delayed train. are all seated in glum silence. There is no sound, not even when one of the characters goes to the hotel desk, for the hotel manager, engaged in listening on the telephone, merely nods to her and receives a nod in reply. Then two luggage porters enter and immediately the story switches from silent technique to talkie—extremely talkative, in fact.

Fine acting and gripping drama, sprinkled with rich English comedy, combine to make “The Lady Vanishes” a noteworthy production.- A G.B.D. film, “The Lady Vanishes,” tells of the mysterious ’disappearance of an English governess (Dame May Whitty) from a Continental train. Dame Whitty is travelling with a young English girl (Margaret Lockwood) at the time of her disappearance. Miss Lockwood, who had received minor concussion before entering the train, falls asleep during the journey and on awakening finds that Dame Whitty has vanished. Though all her fellow-passengers deny ever having seen the woman and another passenger, Paul Lukas, an eminent brain specialist, declares that the effect of receiving slight concussion a short time before has been responsible for her “illusion,” Miss Lockwood immediately begins a search for her friend. Michael Redgrave, a happy-go-lucky composer whom she had met by chance the previous evening, comes to her aid and together they discover a plot to kill Dame Whitty. The suspense in the film is relieved by comedy. The supporting programme is an excellent one.