*points to icon*
The 39 Steps
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Robert Donnat, Madeleine Carroll
1939
Alfred Hitchcock is known as the Master of Suspense of course. Everyone knows that. But what does that mean? It means that in a film from 1935, only seven years after talkies hit Hollywood, we have a truly riveting, suspenseful film that displays all the classic Hitchcock hallmarks.
Robert Donnat plays Hannay, a Canadian vacationing in England, who goes out to the music hall one night. A gunshot rings out through the crowded hall. In the mad rush out, a mysterious, beautiful woman with an accent asks him to take her home. She’s a spy, and when she is murdered in his apartment in the middle of the night and he is blamed for her murder, he takes on her mission for the good of England while trying to evade both enemy spies and omnipresent policemen. What emerges is a mad chase from London to Scotland and back again.
As most critics point out, although Hitchcock was certainly an experienced director prior to this film, this is the first time that he used his classic notion of “the wrong man” being persecuted, a theme he returned to time after time. In terms of iconic Hitchcock, not only is there The Wrong Man, there is also the cool blonde woman (Madeleine Carroll) who is working for and against the hero, the police as enemy rather than friend, and a classic MacGuffin. The secret of the spies is ultimately revealed at the end, but really, did it matter? Not at all. It simply served as a vehicle to traipse Donnat around in peril.
Hitchcock manages to ratchet up the suspense almost from the get-go. Very cleverly using the major form of mass communication at the time, newspapers haunt Donnat for the first half of the film as he is trying to evade police pursuit to reach help from a secret agent. On a train, running away from his flat and the murder charge, the silly men he is sharing the compartment with purchase a paper at a layover, and there is increasing tension. Undergarment salesmen do not typically inspire fear, but as Donnat realizes these men might realize who he is from the newspaper, the scene becomes perilous. Hitchcock brilliantly follows this up with a scene in a country croft in the middle of the Scottish moors. Even in the middle of nowhere, as Donnat seeks refuge for the night, once again the newspaper haunts him. He cannot escape his fate. Hitchcock is truly the master of suspense.
Madeleine Carroll, the cool blonde, enters about halfway through, as a woman who believes Donnat is a murderer, and through a series of events, ends up literally chained to him. The picture turns from a nonstop thrill ride to a romance under unlikely circumstances. The formula of a bickering pair turned romantic pair is one of which I will never tire. A particular favorite scene of mine is when Donnat, tired of trying to convince her of his innocence, starts to tell Carroll the tall tales of his “life as a murderer.” He rattles it off with such an exasperated coolness that she starts giggling. Who wouldn’t?
How sexy is this? Seriously!!
There is a delicious sense of a full-circle in this film with Donnat’s game of cat and mouse taking him from a music hall in London to the moors of Scotland, then back to a crowded hall in London. It gives a sense of completeness that is very satisfying.
Overall, the film is a wonderful romantic romp, a suspenseful thriller, and even foreshadows the coming movement of film noir with its play of light and dark. The 39 Steps is truly a can’t miss entry in the Hitchcock canon.