The 39 Steps
Screening: Monday 12 January 2009
To be introduced by Harry Patterson
Director: Alfred Hitchcock.
Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, John Laurie.
Certificate: U. 86 minutes.
Synopsis
Robert Donat plays Richard Hannay in this loose adaptation of the popular thriller by John Buchan. Whilst sitting in a theatre watching a performance by Mr Memory, Hannay and the rest of the audience are forced to flee when gunshots rings out. He bumps into a young woman, Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim), but she turns out to be a spy on the run and a few hours later she is murdered. Hannay realises he will be accused and, both intrigued by what Annabella had told him and wanting to try and prove his innocence, he decides to go on the run by taking a train to Alt-Na-Shellach, a place in Scotland circled on the map in her hand when she was killed.This is when we get the wonderful transition scene of the landlady’s scream on discovering Annabella’s body being blended with and then overtaken by the Flying Scotsman’s departing whistle as it bears Hannay away from London just one of the many instances in The 39 Steps where Hitchcock’s complete mastery of his medium is demonstrated.
Another memorable sequence is the chase across the moors with Hannay handcuffed to Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), the beautiful blonde stranger he met on the train. Despite the danger they face, they bicker continuously as they run from one hiding place to another. These scenes contain some of the best comic dialogue in the movie and, as elsewhere, this seems to heighten rather than diminish the tension.
And the dig at politics pleases even today’s theoretically sophisticated voters. Whilst on the run Hannay barges into a rally, only to be mistaken for a guest speaker in support of a local election candidate. Not knowing who or what he is endorsing, he strings together a long line of clichés by way of a speech and is given a standing ovation for his efforts, even though he mispronounced the candidate’s name as McCrocodile instead of McCorquodale.
Notes
Throughout The 39 Steps the feeling of danger lurking beneath the surface is subtly conveyed by lighting, sound effects and cutting techniques. This linked with the narrative’s hair-raising suspense, the sudden shock events for which Hitchcock was renowned (Annabella’s murder, the brilliantly managed sequences when Hannay is recognised more than once as the supposed murderer) and the visual as well as verbal wit, combines to form a classic comedy thriller.The movie is witty, urbane, inventive. Rarely have eighty-two minutes of murder and mystery been so enjoyable.
