The 39 Steps

Year:  1935
Director:  Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay:  Charles Bennett and Ian Hay, based on the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
Starring:  Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle
Running Time:  86 minutes
Genre:  Thriller

Richard Hannay (Donat), a Canadian living in London, meets a mysterious woman, Annabella Smith (Mannheim), who identifies herself as a secret agent and tells him that she is being targeted by a group of ruthless killers, part of a conspiracy to steal British military secrets.  When she is killed by an intruder in Hannay's flat, Hannay is immediately accused of the murder, and finds himself on the run. Hannay finds himself fleeing across Scotland, handcuffed to Pamela (Carroll), who believes he is guilty, and pursued by police and spies alike.

This film, while inevitably dated, still stands up as a hugely enjoyable espionage thriller.  Full of action, twists, suspense and a strong thread of humour, it moves from incident to incident and rarely slackens it's pace.  It is a classic piece of early Hitchcock, and anyone who is familiar with his later works will recognise several Hitchcock tropes (the man accused of a crime he didn't commit, the glamorous blonde lead actress, the Hitchcock cameo - about seven minutes into the film he can be seen crossing the street in front of a bus and important plot points conveyed in small details in intricate wordless sequences, and seemingly minor things turning out to have a huge significance).  The centrepiece of the film, Hannay handcuffed to Pamela while they are pursued across country, is comparatively brief and doesn't occur until quite late into the film.  In fact Madeleine Carroll isn't really in the film much at all, until the last half hour.  Which is a pity because she is really good, and there is real chemistry between herself and Robert Donat.  Donat himself, makes for an engaging leading man.  It isn't a perfect film by any means, it is dated, and there are some of the problems of early sound recording that you find a lot in films of this period, and it has to be said some of the Scottish accents are not very convincing.  In terms of plotting it's very old-fashioned, the supposedly ordinary Richard Hannay seems to be able to get out of any situation no matter how difficult with apparent ease, and without ever once losing his stiff upper lip.  The sequence between the crofter (played by John Laurie, who would later find fame in the television series Dad's Army (1968-1977)) and his wife (played by Peggy Ashcroft) is surprisingly dark.  The film was loosely based on a 1915 adventure novel by Scottish author John Buchan, which has been adapted several times since.     

Madeleine Carroll and Robert Donat in The 39 Steps