REVIEW: The Lady Vanishes by Ethel Lina White
First published as The Wheel Spins in 1936 and adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1938, Ethel Lina White’s The Lady Vanishes established the author as one of the greatest crime writers of the Golden Age.
After a summer holiday in a remote corner of Europe, the glamorous socialite Iris Carr is looking forward to returning to the comforts of home. But having stayed on at the resort after her friends’ departure, Iris now faces the journey home alone. On the train to Trieste, she is pleased to meet a kindly governness, Miss Froy, and strikes up a conversation. Iris warms to her companion, and is alarmed when she wakes from a sleep to find that Miss Froy has suddenly disappeared from the train without a trace. Worse still, she is horrified to discover that none of the other passengers on the train will admit to having ever seen such a woman.
Review
1936 – Iris is a young English semi-socialite who has, along with her friends (aka “the crowd” – and I felt, as often as this term is used, it should have been capitalized), been on holiday in a rural area of Eastern Europe. They’ve managed to make themselves conspicuously disliked due to their vocal insularity and bad manners. Iris stays behind another day after the rest leave and continues snubbing and ruffling the feathers of the staid English who remain. But two incidents – becoming lost while on a hike and fainting at the train station – have made her feel slightly uneasy as she sees how easy it would be for a lone person, with no foreign language skills to come to harm.
Once on board, she enters a stuffy, full compartment and slowly eyes all the others there. One person sticks out to her as English and the two women head off to have tea during which Miss Froy, a governess, rattles on to Iris about her job, the palace she lived in, and The Personage for whom she worked. On the way there and back, Iris sees many of the people who were at the rural inn and sees that some of them notice the two women but given how Iris and her mob behaved, several of the English people won’t engage with them.
Later, after she fell asleep and then awoke, Iris realizes that Miss Froy isn’t there. When the middle aged lady doesn’t return for hours, Iris gets worried. But no one will believe her or worry about a missing woman who seems to have never existed. Is it all in Iris’s head or is there a vast conspiracy?
Originally published under the title “The Wheel Spins,” this is the book that Alfred Hitchcock took the bare bones from and turned into his film “The Lady Vanishes.” Frankly I can see the need for some of his cuts and additions as much time is spent (initially and then in spurts later on) setting stages and reasons for why some of the characters won’t back Iris up. Once the mystery actually starts, things pick up except for those aforementioned scenes that do a deep dive into the characters’ reasons for needing to stay mum.
Iris doesn’t start out being a nice person and though she is driven to discover what happened to Miss Froy, this doesn’t really act to redeem her much. She still has her moments of being bored and annoyed by others. Still as the trip progresses, I think she’s realized how shallow her friendships were and that she doesn’t want to go back to that life or those people. There is one thing that does a number on me as far as the (slight) romance goes and I think people will understand when they get to it. The hero, for reasons he convinces himself are for Iris’ own good, does something that I would find hard to forgive. I’m not even sure that he’s totally fessed up by the end.
The book has not aged well in places. Many of the English characters are the type who feel themselves superior to “foreigners” and who believe foreigners should all speak English (even in their own countries) and after one fruitless verbal exchange, if one then speaks English MORE LOUDLY then the foreigners will have to understand. Iris resorts to this herself once and then uses the argument that she and Miss Froy are English so naturally all the other English people on the train ought to believe her and stand up for her.
But I actually think the real reason for Miss Froy being kidnapped makes more sense than what Hitchcock substituted. Or at least it makes more sense for a book written in 1936 vs the 1938 spy stuff. White actually does a great job setting her scenes and as I read, I could “see” it playing out almost as if I were watching a movie. It’s not quite as good as I was hoping it would be but for a suspense book that is almost 90 years old, it’s not bad. B- /C+
~Jayne
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“The Lady Vanishes established the author as one of the greatest crime writers of the Golden Age”. I read a LOT of Golden Age detective fiction back in the day. And I don’t remember ever even coming across her name. So, did it establish her or did it establish Alfred Hitchcock? According to that infallible source, Wikipedia, Hitchcock almost didn’t make the film. But he was under contract to the studio that optioned the rights and owed them a final film. It brought him to the attention of the Hollywood studios and the rest is history.
@Sandra: [grin] Blurbs, gotta love ’em. Did she maybe go by E.L. White to blur her gender? I honestly don’t know but yeah, I think “one of the greatest crime writers of the Golden Age” might be overreaching it a bit.
Ethel Lina White? Also never heard of her and I’d have remembered because her first two names sound like some kind of gasoline or solvent. But the movie, that I remember well. Did Hitchcock take all the credit? I will have to look for the film again, even though I know it won’t hold up; rather like THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS and DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY, all of which I loved watching as a teenager. Thanks for the review, Jayne.
@Darlynne: “Ethel Lina.” [snork] “Is your engine making noises? Add some Ethel Lina to your tank.”
I’ve watched The Lady Vanishes fairly recently and yes, it’s aged but it’s still better, IMO than a lot of the dreck being released today. I need to watch The Thirty-nine Steps again. Are you talking about the original 1930s version of Death Takes a Holiday?
I just finished a Catherine Aird mystery. I think she was writing from the 1950s onward. Very British, nice humorous touches assuming you can understand the Britishness, and good mysteries in the three or so I’ve read so far. Dated but I haven’t found anything particularly offensive.
I read an ancient copy of this back in the 1990s, having loved the movie. I remember thinking at the time that Hitchcock had made a more entertaining version of the story. One of my favourite things about the movie is the two cricket-mad Englishmen who just want to find out what’s happening in the Test match in Manchester. It definitely holds up today, despite its technical limitations.
@oceanjasper: Charters and Caldicott! I love them. Has anyone seen any of the more recent versions of the film?
@Kris Bock: Have you got any recommendations for Aird books?
@Jayne: Yes, the original with Frederick March. I thought it so swoon-worthy as an emo-teenager. Elderly me couldn’t believe they were the same movie. And, of course, “Come with me, I am Death. Yeah, you’ll be dead, but we’ll be together for eternity” (paraphrasing), was not creepy or alarming at all.
@Darlynne: Who wouldn’t want to be Grazia who has the ultimate bad boy fall in love with her? (Paraphrasing) “Now I know the meaning of love, life and everything and you taught me.”