Themes: Flight of the Innocent, Clearing One's Name, Witnessing a Crime
Main Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, Lucie Mannheim
Release Year: 1935
Country: UK
Run Time: 87 minutes
Plot
This classic British thriller was one of Alfred Hitchcock's first major international successes, and it introduced a number of the stylistic and thematic elements that became hallmarks of his later work. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Canadian rancher on vacation in England, attends a music hall performance by "Mr. Memory" (Wylie Watson); in the midst of the show, shots ring out and Richard flees the theater. Moments later, a terrified woman (Lucie Mannheim) begs Richard to help her; back at his room, she tells him that she's a British spy whose life has been threatened by international agents waiting outside. Richard is certain that she's mad until she reappears at his door in the morning, near death with a knife in her back, a map in her hand, and muttering something about "39 Steps." Discovering that a group of thugs are indeed waiting outside, Richard slips away and takes the first train to the Scottish town on the dead woman's map. Richard learns that he's now wanted by the police for murder, and he must find a way to clear his name. He begins trying to do so with the help of a woman he meets en route, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who serves as his unwitting assistant, even after she tries to turn him in. The 39 Steps was later remade in 1959 and 1978 -- both without Hitchcock's participation. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Review
Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps firmly established the director's reputation beyond the boundaries of the British isles, but it did far more than that: it was also the film where Hitchcock's reach and grasp as a filmmaker began growing by leaps and bounds. He'd already made three excellent thrillers (The Lodger (1926), Blackmail (1929), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934)) that had attracted considerable attention in America, but The 39 Steps, as a piece of screencraft, assembled all the best elements in those widely scattered successes (spread across eight years of his career) between two covers in a way that riveted audiences and industry observers. It played exactly the way that British movies weren't supposed to, lively and piercingly funny, rather than stodgy and dignified; it was almost as much a comedy as a thriller, which was something new in any country's cinema; and it was almost as much a battle of the sexes in the jousting of its two leads (Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll) as it was a quest by the hero to prove his innocence of a murder charge; by the end of the movie, we want to see not only how Richard Hanney (Donat) proves his innocence but also how he and Pamela (Carroll) manage to stay together. Not coincidentally, The 39 Steps was also the first of his major films in which Hitchcock ripped up and threw away most of the contents of the underlying source (a novel by John Buchan that had been a best-seller then and which has remained a perennially popular read ever since) -- he later followed this practice in his subsequent treatments of Josephine Tey's A Shilling For Candles (as Young and Innocent), Ethel Lina White's The Wheel Spins (as The Lady Vanishes), and Francis Beeding's The House of Dr. Edwardes (as Spellbound), among other literary properties. In the process, he struck a blow for the director as a creative voice in his own right, independent of and superior to the novelist (at least where actual screen adaptations were concerned), who might take one or two good ideas, a name or two, and perhaps a setting and a scene from a chapter and junk everything else, making it his own. In a time when producers and studios still occupied a place of cultural inferiority (even in their own minds) to the authors and publishers of the printed word, this was no small achievement, especially considering that it was done well and, thus, justified itself. So, in his own way, working within the thriller genre in The 39 Steps, Hitchcock helped open the way for virtually every major director who came after him. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
John Laurie - John; Wylie Watson - Mr. Memory; Helen Haye - Mrs. Jordan; Frank Cellier - Sheriff Watson; Jerry Verno - Voyager; Peggy Simpson - Young Maid; Gus McNaughton - Voyager; Miles Malleson - Director of the Palladium
There have been four major film versions of the book. Hitchcock's original has been the most acclaimed, and remains so today: In 1999 it came 4th in a BFI poll of British films,[1] while in 2004 Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie of all time.
Englishman Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is at a Londonmusic halltheatre, watching a demonstration of the superlative powers of recall of "Mr. Memory" (Wylie Watson) when shots are fired. In the ensuing panic, he finds himself holding a frightened Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim), who talks him into taking her back to his flat. There, she tells him that she is a spy, being chased by assassins. She claims to have uncovered a plot to steal vital British military secrets, masterminded by a man with the top joint missing from one of his fingers. She mentions the "thirty-nine steps", but does not explain its meaning.
That night, Smith is fatally stabbed with Hannay's bread knife, but manages to warn him to flee. He sneaks out of the watched flat disguised as a milkman and takes a train to Scotland, where she had told him she was going to visit a man. He sees the police searching the train and learns from a newspaper that he is the target of a nationwide manhunt as a murder suspect. In desperation, he enters a compartment and kisses the sole occupant, the attractive Pamela (Carroll), in an attempt to escape detection. She however frees herself from his unwanted embrace and alerts the policemen. Hannay jumps from the train onto the Forth Rail Bridge and escapes.
He stays the night with a poor crofter (farmer) (John Laurie) and his young wife (Peggy Ashcroft), who realizes Hannay is on the run, but keeps quiet. The next morning, he leaves, wearing the farmer's Sunday coat, and calls at the house Annabella had told him of. There he tells his story to the seemingly respectable Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), who then reveals that he is missing part of a finger. Jordan shoots Hannay and leaves him for dead, but luckily, the bullet is stopped by the farmer's hymnbook, left in a coat pocket.
Hannay goes to the local police, but they refuse to believe his story, since they know Jordan well. Hannay jumps through a window and escapes into the crowd. He tries to hide himself in a political meeting, but is mistaken for the introductory speaker; he gives a rousing impromptu speech (without knowing a thing about the candidate he is introducing), but is recognised by Pamela, who gives him up once more. He is handcuffed and taken away by "policemen", who ask Pamela to accompany them. Hannay realises they are agents of the conspiracy when they bypass the nearest police station. When a flock of sheep blocks the road, one of the henchmen handcuffs him to Pamela, but he escapes anyway, dragging the unwilling woman along.
They travel across the countryside and stay the night at an inn, the woman still not believing Hannay's story. While he sleeps, she manages to slip out of the handcuffs, but then eavesdrops on one of the fake policemen on the telephone; the conversation confirms Hannay's assertions.
She returns to the room and sleeps on a sofa. Next morning, she tells him what she heard. He sends to London to warn the police. No secret documents have been reported missing however, so they do not believe her. Instead, they follow her to get to Hannay.
She leads them to Mr. Memory's show at the London Palladium. When the performer is introduced, Hannay recognises his theme music - it's the annoyingly catchy tune he hasn't been able to forget for days. Hannay puts two and two together and realises that the spies are using Mr. Memory to smuggle the secrets out: he has them memorised. As the police take him into custody, he shouts out a question: "What are the 39 Steps?" Mr. Memory compulsively begins to answer, "The Thirty-Nine Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of ...." Jordan shoots him and tries to flee, but is apprehended. The dying Mr. Memory recites the information stored in his brain, a design for a silent aircraft engine.
Adaptation
The film departs substantially from Buchan's novel, introducing a love interest. In this film, The 39 Steps refers to the clandestine organisation itself, whereas in the book and in the other film versions, it refers to physical steps, albeit located in different places and with different significances to the plots.[2] When in the film Annabella (who is a man called "Franklin P. Scudder" in the novel) tells Hannay she is travelling to meet a man in Scotland, Hitchcock is avoiding one of Buchan's wild, unexplained implausibilities: the way in which Hannay, with the whole country to hide in, chances to walk into the one house where the spy ringleader lives.
The 39 Steps is the second film (after the silent film The Lodger) in a line of Hitchcock films based upon the idea of an innocent man on the run, including Saboteur (1942) and North by Northwest (1959).
Alfred Hitchcock cameo: A signature occurrence in almost all of Hitchcock's films, he can be seen tossing some litter while Robert Donat and Lucie Mannheim run from the theatre at the beginning of the film.
