Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes” and the Conspiracy of Genre

Iris Henderson (Margaret Lockwood) is certain there is a conspiracy afoot, but it’s not the one she thinks she is. She is ensnared in the conspiracy of genre, and the machinations of the romantic comedy ensure she will be voluntarily coupled by the end.

Iris starts the film quite resistant to this prospect, as she boards the train to be sacrificed on the altar of marriage to a man she doesn’t love, a man she doesn’t even seem to like. Then she meets Miss Froy (May Whitty). Miss Froy (“rhymes with joy”) is a vision of satisfying old age, womanly and alone, unencumbered with a husband but no less worse for the wear. Is there an alternative for Iris too?

But then the lady vanishes! Was this fleeting glimpse of female self-contentment merely a figment of her imagination? No, it couldn’t be. But everyone else on the train says it was, including the ghastly old wife of the minister of propaganda, and the icy Italian mother never seen without her children at her side, and the couple who’s having an unhappy affair — unhappy in one relationship so they turn to another. They all say there was no such woman cheerful and alone.

When Froy does reappear, she has been strapped to a gurney awaiting involuntary brain surgery. She is the figurative “hysterical woman” who needs her mind put right. She is being…