The 39 Steps (1935)

I wondered how would I enjoy an age old film when I rented the DVD of this Magneficient Movie. I am a hardcore Hitchcock fan and started watching oldies when I almost got deprived of good plots from modern-day flicks and started craving for more original plots.

Thus, began my visual journey of great movies starting from Hitchcock's later Movies of 60s and then 50s and then 40s ..... and then 30s ! Although personally, I had a halt there on watching Movies of the 30s as I could hardly enjoy some of the movies made during that decade.

But, this Movie struck me so hard that it left a great impact on my Mind. Undoubtedly, The 39 Steps(1935) remains as the greatest movie ever made till date. Its still a step ahead then other great classics such as "Vertigo" & "North by Northwest".

Amongst the many reasons why this Movie is great, are its almost flawless & moving script, precise editing & great dialogs. And finally, the impact which it creates on us through medium of various emotions of all the characters.

Its a story about a Charming Young Man 'Mr. Richard hannay' played by Robert Dannat, who gets entangled in a spy chase when he tries to shelter a counter-espionage agent in his house. When the Agent is killed by the Spies, he is on his run from the Police and the killers from London all the way to Scotland country side. Almost after the second half, he gets handcuffed to the lead lady 'Pamela' played by Madelline Carol who also thinks that he is the murderer. In his aggression to claim his innocence, together both the leads continue the journey further, resolving the clues which they get, and finally arriving to the memorable end with dramatic twist.

The detailed thought which was put in while drafting the screenplay of this Movie is surely remarkable. Like how Hannay directs Pamela to fill the registration book of the Hotel as he cannot write since his right hand was handcuffed to her, And Like how good Hannay delivers a great speech in a political gathering, telling only the truth, being misunderstood as a political addresser, And like the perfect handling of the conversation between Hanny and the Unhappy Housewife during their very short acquaintance, And many many more.

The Beauty of the Movie is that it creates a strong bond with the viewers. We get involved into the Movie and enjoy the charm, erotism, fear & curiosity, throughout. This is the Magic of Alfred Hitchcock.

Watch it on priority. Relish this magnum opus of perfect 10/10 thriller ever made in the history of cinema !

Fmovies: The Thirty Nine Steps is extraordinary in every conceivabe way. Anyone who doesn't mind slightly old, black-and-white movies will be enraptured by this Hitchcock classic, which was one of the first films to present sophisticated and witty banter between two ill-matched characters. What makes it even more extraordinary is that it virtually totally alters the source material (John Buchan's novel), yet still comes across as a work of ingenuity.

The story concerns Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) a handsome young man who owns a London flat. A mysterious woman comes to him for help, claiming that she is being hunted by some spies. Hannay helps her, but when she is murdered in his home it look like he is to blame, and he has to go on the run from the police (who obviously want him for the "crime") and the spies (who want him to find out how much he actually knows). En route, he has many adventures as he flees across the South Scotland landscapes, including being handcuffed to a woman (Madeline Carroll) who happens to think he is guilty of the murder.

This is splendid from the word "go". It has enough memorable set pieces for a dozen films, its pace is invigorating, the plot is constantly turning up new surprises, and the performances are just about perfect. Hitchcock spent his career narrating tale of innocent men on the run (indeed, many consider it to be his "favourite" theme) and this is one of the very finest examples of that. Anyone interested in Hitchcock or cinema of the '30s simply must, must, must see this film.

This is proof - if ever it were really needed - that age doesn't really affect a film's quality. If anyone needs to see some of Hitchcock's finest moments, this should be among them.

Playing fast and loose somewhat with John Buchan's (1916) novel, Hitchcock nevertheless directs a fast-moving, riveting story of political intrigue and paranoia with some truly hair-raising scenes (the Forth rail bridge scene springs to mind).

Hitchcock makes his usual cameo appearances. Apart from the one noted here, he's also in one of the early scenes after Arabella Smith fires the pistol. The music hall audience panics and make for the egress, 'Hitch' being one of the crowd. He's also one of the detectives seeking Hannay after he leaves the train on the Forth bridge.

There are some really sparkling lines of dialogue: cold, hungry and tired after tramping across the moors in (what I suppose is Fife), Hannay encounters a crofter (played by John Laurie, later famous as Fraser in Dad's Army): Crofter (to Hannay who has asked him for a bed for the night): Can you sleep in a box bed?" Hannay: "I can try" Crofter: "Can you eat the herring?" Hannay: "I could eat half a dozen right now".

Once inside, the crofter's (much younger) wife asks Hannay the following, after hearing that he lives in London: "Is it true that the women in London are beautiful?" Hannay: "Some of them are but they wouldn't be if they stood next to you." My word, what a charmer!

In case you were wondering, the thirty-nine steps in the original book referred to the steps down to the sea at a secluded bay, the spy involved arranging to be extracted by a submarine when the tide had covered up to the thirty-ninth step from the top. This is not alluded to in the 1935 film version, other than to give a name to the network of spies involved. Hannay was a mining engineer and Arabella Smith in the book is a man! It's a short-ish film too, coming in at about an hour and a quarter. It's occasionally on British terrestrial telly and never fails to please. Why they tried to remake this (in 1953 and 1978) is anyone's guess as you can't improve on perfection.

The 39 Steps fmovies. Alfred Hitchcock followed up his first international success, The Man Who Knew Too Much with an even better film, The Thirty Nine Steps. Hitchcock must have had a particular fondness for this film because I see elements of it North By Northwest, Saboteur, and Torn Curtain.

There is no director in the history of the cinema who liked a good chase film better than Alfred Hitchcock. This one's a beauty with a wrongly accused of murder Robert Donat, running from London to Scotland and back again to find some spies to clear his name. Along the way Donat picks up a lovely and first unwilling traveling companion in Madeleine Carroll who is arguably the first of his blonde heroines.

Donat and Ronald Colman rivaled for roles somewhat, they seem always to be cast as the same type of characters. Of course Donat worked primarily in the UK and on stage while Colman was strictly a movie actor since the silent days. Colman is the only other guy who could have done this and other Donat parts. It's a pity there are none like either of these guys around today.

When Geoffrey Tearle thinks he's disposed of Donat by shooting him, Donat's life got saved by a hymn book in his breast pocket. Whether that was a device in the original novel by John Buchan or something Alfred Hitchcock improvised the inspiration for it was definitely taken from the attempted assassination of former President Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. While running for president on the Progressive ticket that year, Roosevelt was shot in the chest in Milwaukee. What saved his life was a copy of his speech and an eyeglass case in his breast pocket.

The whole thing here is how the espionage is being carried out and I won't reveal it. But if you've seen Torn Curtain remember why Paul Newman was the only guy they could send on that espionage mission.

This is probably Hitchcock's best film from his pre-Hollywood period and shouldn't be missed.

Film history was made in 1935 when Alfred Hitchcock, who was at the time an active but little known and somewhat run of the mill film director, received a contract to create a low budget potboiler type spy thriller, and used the opportunity to provide his studio with a masterpiece which has never been forgotten. In addition he established his reputation as the master of suspense, something which remained unchallenged throughout the remainder of his career. In style this film is quintessimal Hitchcock, and those who know his films can pick out sequences in any of his later ones which were based on, or inspired by, his work in this early thriller. Similarly, sequences from this film have also been imitated by many other directors - for example Richard Pearce, in the thriller "No Mercy" (1986), included sequences that imitated a famous sequence in Hitchcock's film where Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll were handcuffed together and on the run , by showing Richard Gere and Kim Basinger fleeing pursuers whilst handcuffed together. Because of this "The 39 Steps" has become a "must see" classic that most movie buffs still regard as an essential element in their personal film collection.

There are two criticisms commonly made of this film. The first is that there are logical imperfections in the story. This is true of almost all Hitchcock films (as well as those of most other directors). The point is that Hitchcock had an unsurpassed ability to maintain a flow in the unfolding of his story on the screen which totally distracts his audience from the type of mental agility required to even be aware of them. Only when dissecting the story on a sequence by sequence basis will such imperfections become significant. The second criticism is that this film, whilst based on John Buchan's novel of the same name, departs very considerably from the story in the book. I am not a purist about this, books and films are totally different media and must be judged independently. In some cases it must be recognised that a book is structured so that it is almost impossible for a film to remain true to the original book. What I do believe is important is that the film-goer should be entitled to know how true a film is to a previously read and perhaps long loved book. If a film is described as "the film of the best selling novel........", then it should be as accurate a dramatic presentation of the story in the book as possible. (Where the original is a play, not a book, the dramatic medium is already much closer to the movie form, and I believe such a description should only be used when most of the original dialogue from the play is accurately reproduced in the movie.) By contrast, if a film is described as "based on............" then the filmmaker should have considerably more freedom; and if the phrase used is "inspired by........" then a largely independent dramatic presentation should be expected. In the case of "The 39 Steps, Hichcock's film comes into the latter category, but a later (and in my opinion generally inferior) 1978 film of the same name can legitimately claim to be much more closely based on the book. In this instance I personally do not regard the original book as sufficiently important to be sacrosanct, but those who differ from me about this may feel they have an adequate reason for preferring the 1978 film.

Today "The 39 Steps" is seldom shown in movie theaters and, when a home video rather than the actual film is under consideration, a

While I personally prefer Hitchcock's darker, more troubling movies, especially 'Vertigo' and 'Psycho', as far as his straightforward thrillers go 'The 39 Steps' is still one of his most entertaining. The man on the run because of false accusations or "knowing too much" motif may or may not have been invented here, but it certainly influenced dozens of subsequent thrillers, all the way up until contemporary movies like 'Enemy Of The State' and 'Minority Report'. Robert Donat makes a great hero, and Madeleine Carroll is charming and funny as his reluctant partner. The chemistry and repartee between the two is something that has been copied countless times since. Some people seem to regard 'The 39 Steps' as a practice run for Hitch's later 'North By Northwest', but I prefer the earlier movie. It may not be complex and deep, but it's great fun, and full of old fashioned movie magic. A classic thriller that is still wonderfully entertaining, and should prove to be enjoyable to almost everyone who watches it. Recommended.