39 Steps: Vintage British Hitchcock

Robert Donat stars as visiting Canadian who gets embroiled in a British espionage plot in this 1935 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

This was one of the last films that Hitchcock made in England before bringing his talents to the United States four years later. He'd already directed more than 20 feature-length movies, and his sure hand and distinctive style are very evident here.

The film's story line is familiar to Hitchcock fans. Donat plays Richard Hannay who is wrongly suspected of murder. He'd crossed paths with a beautiful but paranoid lady after shots were fired at a variety show he was attending. She talks him into taking her with him to his flat, which he is glad to do. He begins to doubt that this is a good idea when she tells him that she had fired the shots and that two men are after her to kill her. His disbelief is only dispelled when he checks out the window and sees that there are, indeed, two men waiting down below outside.

She explains that she is a foreign agent assigned to stop sensitive British secrets from being smuggled out of the country. Later that night, she wakens him only to fall mortally wounded with a knife in her back. She dies before she can tell him much, but he gets a map with a town circled, the name of a man, and the mysterious mention of 39 steps.

What follows is a fast-paced chase as he flees bad guys and good cops while he tries to unravel the plot that had cost the woman her life. It's only by revealing the plot that he can prove his innocence.

The suspense is ratcheted up, repeatedly, as Hannay gets himself in one impossible situation after another, but there's always an undercurrent of humor as well. The film is rich in character studies, as all the people who Hannay meets in the course of his adventure seem to be living full lives and are not there just for the sake of Hannay's story. In fact, it sometimes seems that Hannay keeps stumbling into movies about them.

There is a nice Hepburn-Tracy type chemistry between Hannay and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) who he meets on a train during his escape. At one point, he finds himself handcuffed to her, much to their mutual distress because she can't believe he's not a vicious murderer.

The film has a low budget feel about it. It was shot in black and white and the pre-Dolby sound is kind of primitive, but the film more than makes up for this with its taut story and engrossing characters.