Watch Your Step-Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” (1935)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Film Critic Sam Lowell

The 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, directed by Sir Alfred Hitchcock, 1935      

In writing a review of another Alfred Hitchcock film, The Man Who Knew Too Much, I noted that the famed director had two periods-the early days in Britain where he made many thriller films centered on various acts of espionage against the British state and the later American period where he branched out into general scary movies like Psycho and The Birds.  It was probably natural in inter-war England especially after the rise of Hitler in Germany in 1933 that the direction of political thrillers by Hitchcock would be centered on various dastardly deeds against England security even when the so-called “foreign powers” are unnamed. That notion gets an early workout in the film under review, The 39 Steps, when an ordinary member of the British Empire (from Canada) has to solve some mysteries while on the lam against His Majesty’s interests.      

Here’s the play. Ordinary guy, although a sport no doubt, Richard Hannay played by Robert Donat, finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong circumstances when he befriends a Mati Hari-like woman after a music hall that they had frequented was cleared by suspicious shots being fired at the audience. Being a sport he plays along with this femme and lets her stay at his place (of course in separate sleeping quarters). During her time at Richard’s place she, seemingly sensing that she is in serious danger tells him that she is a spy, a spy who has infiltrated an organization called, well, The 39 Steps, which is a network of spies trying to steal military secrets from the British (and if you were paying attention above you know in whose interest those dastardly deeds were being performed circa 1935). During the night she is murdered but before she dies she begs Richard to do his duty and find the villains.     

Apparently with time on his hands our Richard does just that heading to Scotland by train based on information that the dead spy had left behind. En route on the train he finds out, surprise, surprise that the authorities are ready to send him to the big step-off, sent him to the hangman for the murder of that dead spy. In an attempt to ward off the coppers on his trail he pops into a good looking blonde’s compartment and tries to kiss her to avoid detection. This young woman, Pamela, played by Madeleine Carroll, rats him out to the coppers, thinks he is a murderer as the newspaper have declared. (That snitching should have been a clue to avoid such a woman like the plague, would have been in my old neighborhood where such an act would have had very serious consequences for the young lady, a good-looking blond or not). Before he can be apprehended our man escapes, easily escapes the coppers and continues on his merry way to his Highlands destination.    

With the coppers still hot on Richard’s trail he has a series of close calls but avoids the incompetent crew that is pursing him. Of course if you introduce a good-looking blond into the plot chances are you will see her again and that is the case when Richard gets to his destination and after finding the guy the dead spy told him to see finds that he is the leader of the spy ring. Get this though after his narrow escape from the bad guys and this is really where you have to find fault with our man Richard he runs into Pamela again and again she rats him out. Or thinks she has ratted him out which is the same thing. Once the coppers grab him and her, allegedly to identify him, they find out that the so-called coppers who had apprehended them were part of the spy network. 

Naturally they escape the clutches of this set of bad guys and once Pamela finds out by accident that our man Richard was not a murderer she helps him out. They get back to London by hook or by crook and Richard once again winds up at a music hall where a guy with a fantastic memory is performing. Keep that guy in mind when you watch this one. Oh yeah, Richard stops the bad guys, stops them cold and that is when he finds out the code name of the spy ring is the The 39 Steps. And guess what, surprise surprise again at the end Richard and Pamela are holding hands. Our man Richard best keep looking over his shoulder though when she is around- a word to the wise.