silverscreen888 Review of The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (1935)

Good Early Hitchcock Directing; Robert Donat; an Enjoyable Noir Thriller

[7/10 · 31 July 2008]

I have always considered this estimable earl film to be overrated. But this is not to say that the film does not have values that have, in fact, stood the test of time rather well. Alfred Hitchcock directed this fluid-looking film with writing credit given to John Buchan for his novel of that name, Charles Bennett for the rather free adaptation (no doubt with Hitchcock's participation also) and Ian Hay for the above-average dialog. The film is ambitious for its time, I suggest, taking the viewer from London to Scotland via train and back to London once more with stops in a crofter's cottage, a manorial-looking house, a London flat, several theaters, a police station or two and a county inn in addition to several outdoor scenes. Michael Balcon and Ivor Montagu were the uncredited producers; the understated music is also uncredited. The cinematography by Bernard Knowles is frequently atmospheric and well-matched, despite the script's great variation in locales and lighting; and the art direction by Albert Jullion and Oscar Werndorff generally holds up well despite the film's age. What I find surprising about the production is that while it depends on the very good cast's work for its major values, much of the piece's swiftness, convincing realism and dramatic action is supplied by Hitchcock even this early via camera virtuosity. Among the cast, Madeleine Carroll is more-than-adequate as the young woman literally dragged into a dangerous situation, and Godfrey Tearle and Helen Haye are powerful as the villains. Lucie Mannheim has a small voice but is quite effective in her early enigmatic scenes, as are Peggy Ashcroft and Hilda Trevelyan in particular. John Laurie, Frank Cellier, Wylie Watson, Peggy Simpson, Gus McNaughton, Jerry Verno and Pat Hagate make the most of what they are allowed to do. Robert Donat, the pursued central; character, has to carry much of the film alone. I found him to be above average in intelligence, humor, timing and his ability to enact the difficult physical actions of this adventure. He makes a somewhat underdeveloped character interesting, praiseworthy and nearly important. The viewer who has seen the director's later "Saboteur", "North By Northwest" and the early "Man Who Knew Too much" should find familiar approaches, scenes and ideas in this seminal and much-admired work of cinema noir. Escape from a public place, the death of someone by knife to whom the hero is speaking, the cool blonde who refuses to believe a wild story, urbane villains glimpsed at a party, unsympathetic police, enforced automobile rides, a crisis in a theater, the mysterious object whose pursuit sets events into motion--all these elements are put to even stronger uses in the later works, I suggest; nevertheless, they are present here, and memorably well- used. This is not for me a riveting work; but it is very-much-copied storyline, nicely- directed for the most part and certainly worth more than one viewing.