• The 39 Steps

10/3/21 (Sun)

Hitchcock’s 1935 version of John Buchan’s novel. Old-fashioned, not sure if the director was entirely serious. After gunshots interrupt a stage performance, a frightened stranger asks Hannay if she can stay the night with him – and he agrees. Really?? Very friendly town there, London. As he sleeps in the living room, she staggers in from his bedroom in the middle of the night and falls over – with a knife in her back. Really?? Running from the police, Hannay grabs a stranger in her train cabin and kisses her passionately in a desperate move to throw the cops off, to which she barely reacts – really?? Hitchcock gives little away in each scene, which is great in his more mature works, but here these touches can come off as contrived. I recalled the stage parody in which four actors played all of the dozens of characters that appear, and now having seen the original film, I wonder which one is the real parody.

He did make one major improvement over the novel in adding a love interest whose fate becomes unwittingly tied to Hannay’s (literally – they’re handcuffed together at one point). And he keeps the action moving at a breathless pace from the start to the final seconds. Even in these early years, he knows how to set up a suspenseful scene, such as the tense uncertainty in the farmhouse over whether the owner downstairs is putting off the police or selling him out. There are some great technical touches as well, like the instant transition from the woman screaming to the rushing train sounding its whistle, and terrific staging like the stabbed woman staggering into the bedroom or the final concert sequence. The sequences in the Scottish highlands were beautifully filmed; the setting had atmosphere to spare.

There was a sense of reverse déjà vu in some parts, like the guy running from the plane overhead (reused in North by Northwest) and the murder at the concert (reused – twice – in The Man Who Knew Too Much), but it’s hard to complain given how well staged they were in this first go-round. The characterizations were memorable and fun, like the suave villain with half a finger, the suspicious farmer and his put-upon wife, the couple running the hotel. Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll were right for their roles, and the acting standard overall was quite high.

The film is certainly not boring if the viewer is willing to accept the coincidences and sometimes corny setups. They’re reportedly making a television remake in multiple episodes with Benedict Cumberbatch, which should give them more time to set the action up and hopefully iron out some of the more questionable plot points. This first film version (there were subsequently two less regarded remakes) was a huge success and remains highly regarded – one poll just this year called it the second-best British film ever made – and it apparently set the template for film thrillers. But I think it’s showing its age.