The 39 Steps

A part of this view­ing list: Cri­te­rion Col­lec­tion Spine #56: Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps.

I would like to pref­ace this review by say­ing that Mar­ian Keane’s Cri­te­rion Essay linked at the end is going to be much bet­ter than any­thing I will write here. The 39 Steps is my favorite Hitch­cock film, made when he was still in Great Britain. In many respects his later work in The Lady Van­ishes is related to this film. I have pro­vided more than my usual num­ber of screen­shots because there were so many strik­ing ones in this film. Some of the best can­not be repro­duced in still pho­tos, because the cam­era move­ment is the real star. I’m an unabashed fan of Hitchcock’s ear­lier works, pos­si­bly because of their qual­ity in spite of bud­get and the British Board of Film Censors.

The plot of The 39 Steps is cen­tered around a Cana­dian in Great Britain who becomes embroiled in a spy ring and is wrongly accused of mur­der. With only one clue and a tal­ent for on-the-spot story-telling, he flees to Scot­land from the cronies of a man with a short­ened pinky fin­ger in order to track down a Pro­fes­sor who turns out to have a short­ened pinky fin­ger. You see, they are try­ing to trans­port a gov­ern­ment secret about a new plane out of the coun­try to an unnamed for­eign power. Of course, you don’t find out about this until the last minute or two of the film, in typ­i­cal Hitch­cock­ian sus­pense mode.

Along the way, the Cana­dian Richard Han­nay keeps bump­ing in to this blonde woman who keeps turn­ing him over to the police/spies from which he keeps escap­ing. Even in the most seri­ous of scenes Hitch­cock man­ages to place lit­tle bits of humor such as this to lighten the inten­sity of the action. And it isn’t the same sort of humor at every point, some is low-brow, some comes from awk­ward sit­u­a­tion com­edy and there is plenty of wry wit from the pro­tag­o­nist himself.

Most peo­ple think hor­ror when they think Hitch­cock, but it is mys­tery and sus­pense that are the bread and but­ter of his films. The deft­ness with which these traits are meted out in The 39 Steps, cou­pled with Hitchcock’s abil­ity to add a twist right when we think the sus­pense is going to be sus­pended make the film inter­est­ing at every moment. The char­ac­ters we meet, though only briefly, have last­ing impacts through­out the film, and the most innocu­ous of items or actions cre­ate a sim­i­lar rip­ple effect. It takes a spe­cial sort of direc­tor to so eas­ily roughen the waters and sub­se­quently still them and have a good time while doing it. Thank­fully Hitch­cock is that man.

• Cri­te­rion Essay by Mar­ian Keane.
• Detailed Film Site film review.
• Down­load the entire novel by John Buchan at Project Guten­berg.
• Hitch­cock Online
• Dr. Macro has scans and WMV clips.