The 39 Steps (1935 film)

Last updated

The 39 Steps
The 39 Steps (1935) - poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by
Based on The Thirty-Nine Steps
1915 novel
by John Buchan
Produced by Michael Balcon
Starring
Cinematography Bernard Knowles
Edited by Derek N. Twist
Music by
Production
company
Distributed byGaumont British Distributors
Release date
  • 6 June 1935 (1935-06-06)(London)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£50,000 [2]

The 39 Steps is a 1935 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is loosely based on the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. [3] It concerns a Canadian civilian in London, Richard Hannay, who becomes caught up in preventing an organisation of spies called "The 39 Steps" from stealing British military secrets. Mistakenly accused of the murder of a counter-espionage agent, Hannay goes on the run to Scotland and becomes tangled up with an attractive woman, Pamela, while hoping to stop the spy ring and clear his name.

Contents

Since its initial release, the film has been widely acknowledged as a classic. Filmmaker and actor Orson Welles referred to it as a "masterpiece". Screenwriter Robert Towne remarked, "It's not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps." [4]

Plot

Forth Bridge in 2007 Forth Rail Bridge from north Josh von Staudach.jpg
Forth Bridge in 2007

At a London music hall theatre, Richard Hannay is watching "Mr. Memory" demonstrate his powers of recall when gunshots are heard. In the ensuing panic, Hannay finds himself holding a seemingly frightened woman who persuades him to take her back to his flat. She tells him her name is Annabella Smith, she is a spy and she fired the shots to create a diversion so she could elude assassins. She claims that she has uncovered a plot to steal vital British military information, masterminded by a man missing the top joint of one finger. She mentions "The 39 Steps", but does not explain the phrase.

Later that night, Smith bursts into Hannay's bedroom and warns him to flee, before dying from a knife in her back. Hannay finds a map of the Scottish Highlands clutched in her hand, showing the area around Killin, with a building named "Alt-na-Shellach" circled. He sneaks out of his flat disguised as a milkman to avoid the waiting assassins and boards the Flying Scotsman to Scotland. At Waverley Station in Edinburgh, he learns he is the target of a nationwide manhunt for Smith's murderer. When he sees police searching the train, he goes to another compartment and kisses the sole occupant, Pamela, to try to avoid capture; however, she alerts the policemen, who stop the train on the Forth Bridge. Hannay escapes.

Making his way north, he stays the night with a crofter and his much younger wife, Margaret. Early the next morning, Margaret sees the headlights of a police car approaching and wakes Hannay; before he flees, she gives him her husband's coat. The police chase after him, even employing an autogyro, but he eludes them.

He eventually reaches Alt-na-Shellach, the house of Professor Jordan, where a party is going on. Jordan hides him from the police. He listens to Hannay's story. When Hannay states that the leader of the spies is missing the top joint of the little finger of his left hand, Jordan shows his right hand, which is missing that joint. He offers Hannay the opportunity to kill himself, then shoots him and leaves him for dead, but the bullet is stopped by a hymnary in the crofter's coat.

Hannay goes to the sheriff. The sheriff does not believe him, since Jordan is his best friend. Hannay jumps through a window. Hiding at a political meeting, he is mistaken for the introductory speaker. He gives a rousing impromptu speech, but Pamela gives him away to the police once more. He is taken away; the policemen insist Pamela accompany them. When they pass the local police station, they say they are going to Inverary, 40 miles away. Hannay realises they are agents of the conspiracy. When the men get out to disperse some sheep blocking the road, they handcuff Pamela to Hannay. Hannay escapes into the foggy night, dragging Pamela with him.

They make their way across the countryside and stay the night at an inn. While Hannay sleeps, Pamela manages to slip out of the handcuffs, but overhears one of the fake policemen on the telephone, confirming Hannay's story. She returns to the room. The next morning, she tells him that she overheard the spies saying that Jordan will be picking something up at the London Palladium. He sends her to London to alert the police, but no secret documents have been reported missing, so they do not believe her. Instead they tail her, hoping that she will lead them to Hannay.

She goes to the Palladium, where a show is on stage. When Mr. Memory is introduced, Hannay recognises his theme music — a catchy tune he has been unable to forget. Hannay, upon seeing Jordan signal Mr. Memory, realises that Mr. Memory has memorised the secrets. As the police are about to take Hannay away, he shouts, "What are The 39 Steps?" Mr. Memory compulsively answers, "The 39 Steps is an organisation of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office of...", at which point Jordan shoots Mr. Memory before being apprehended. At Hannay's request, the wounded Mr. Memory recites the design for a silent aircraft engine. Hannay slips his hand into Pamela's and is not rebuffed.

Cast

Production

Adaptation

The script was originally written by Charles Bennett, who prepared the initial treatment in close collaboration with Hitchcock; Ian Hay then wrote some dialogue. [3]

The film's plot departs significantly from John Buchan's novel; scenes such as those in the music hall and on the Forth Bridge are absent from the book. Hitchcock also introduced the two major female characters, Annabella the spy and Pamela, the reluctant companion. In this film, The 39 Steps refers to the clandestine organisation, whereas in the book and the other film versions it refers to physical steps, with the German spies being called "The Black Stone". [3] [5] By having Annabella tell Hannay she is travelling to meet a man in Scotland (and produce a map with Alt-na-Shellach house circled) Hitchcock avoids the coincidence in Buchan's novel where Hannay, with the whole country in which to hide, chances to walk into the one house where the spy ringleader lives.

Conception

The 39 Steps was a major British film of its time. The production company, Gaumont-British, was eager to establish its films in international markets and especially in the United States, and The 39 Steps was conceived as a prime vehicle towards this end. Where Hitchcock's previous film, The Man Who Knew Too Much , had costs of £40,000, The 39 Steps cost nearly £60,000. Much of the extra money went to the star salaries for leads Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. Both had already made films in Hollywood and were therefore known to American audiences. At a time when British cinema had few international stars, this was considered vital to the film's success. [6] Hitchcock had heard that Scottish industrialist and aircraft pioneer James Weir commuted to work daily in an autogyro and worked the aircraft into the film. [7]

Music

Hitchcock had worked with Jessie Matthews on the film Waltzes from Vienna and reportedly did not like her very much. Nevertheless he used the song "Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle " (from the film Evergreen which starred Matthews) as the music underscoring Mr. Memory's dying words and fade-out music in The 39 Steps. He also used an orchestrated version of her song "May I Have The Next Romance With You" in the ballroom sequence of his 1937 film Young and Innocent . [3]

Hitchcockian elements

The 39 Steps is one in a line of Hitchcock films based upon an innocent man being forced to go on the run, including The Lodger (1927), Saboteur (1942) and North by Northwest (1959). The film contains a common Hitchcockian trope of a MacGuffin (a plot device which is vital to the story, but irrelevant to the audience); in this case, the designs for a secret silent aeroplane engine.

This film contains an Alfred Hitchcock cameo, a signature occurrence in most of his films. At around seven minutes into the film, both Hitchcock and the screenwriter Charles Bennett can be seen walking past a bus that Robert Donat and Lucie Mannheim board outside the music hall. [3] The bus is on London Transport's number 25A route, which ran from Oxford Street through the East End and on to Ilford. As author Mark Glancy points out in his 2003 study of the film, this was familiar ground to Hitchcock, who lived in Leytonstone and then in Stepney (in the East End) as a youth. The director's appearance can thus be seen as an assertion of his connection with the area, but he was by no means romanticising it. As the bus pulls up he litters by throwing a cigarette packet on the ground. [6] :p. 45 Hitchcock is also seen briefly as a member of the audience scrambling to leave the music hall after the shot is fired in the opening scene.

In the middle of the film Hannay is shot in the chest with a pistol at close range, and a long fade-out suggests that he has been killed. This jarringly unusual development—the main character is apparently killed while the story is still unfolding—anticipates Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), and the murder of Marion Crane in the Bates Motel. Hannay was not dead, in the next scene it is revealed that a hymn book in the pocket of his borrowed coat prevented the bullet from killing him. [6]

The film established Madeleine Carroll as the template for Hitchcock's succession of ice-cold and elegant leading ladies – 'Hitchcock blondes'. [3] Of Hitchcock's heroines as exemplified by Carroll, film critic Roger Ebert wrote: "The female characters in his films reflected the same qualities over and over again: They were blonde. They were icy and remote. They were imprisoned in costumes that subtly combined fashion with fetishism. They mesmerised the men, who often had physical or psychological handicaps. Sooner or later, every Hitchcock woman was humiliated". [8] In keeping with many of Hitchcock's films, key sequences are set in familiar locations; in this instance King's Cross station, Piccadilly Circus station and a dramatic sequence on the Forth Bridge.

Reception

Contemporary reviews were very positive. Andre Sennwald of The New York Times wrote: "If the work has any single rival as the most original, literate and entertaining melodrama of 1935, then it must be The Man Who Knew Too Much, which is also out of Mr. Hitchcock's workshop. A master of shock and suspense, of cold horror and slyly incongruous wit, he uses the camera the way a painter uses his brush, stylizing his story and giving it values which the scenarists could hardly have suspected." [9] Variety wrote that "International spy stories are most always good, and this is one of the best, smartly cut, with sufficient comedy relief." [10] The Monthly Film Bulletin declared it "First class entertainment", adding, "Like all melodramas in which the hero must win the story contains a number of very lucky accidents, but Hitchcock's direction, the speed at which the film moves, and Donat's high-spirited acting get away with them and the suspense never slackens." [11] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote "Speed, suspense, and surprises, all combine to make The 39 Steps one of those agreeable thrillers that can beguile the idle hour...Mystery experts will enjoy the whole thing, I think." [12]

Retrospective reviews seem to agree with the film's importance among the director's catalogue. Ethan Brehm of HiConsumption observed that Hitchcock "takes influence from Russian silents and German expressionism from the decade prior, but makes each frame his own canvas and has some early fun with POV here in the process." [13]

It was voted the best British film of 1935 by The Examiner (a Tasmanian publication) in a public poll. [14] It was the 17th-most-popular film at the British box office in 1935–36. [15] Of the four major film versions of the novel, [3] Hitchcock's film has been the most highly praised. In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the fourth-best British film of the 20th century; [16] in 2004, Total Film named it the 21st-greatest British movie ever made, and in 2011 ranked it the second-best book-to-film adaptation of all time. [17] The Village Voice ranked The 39 Steps at number 112 in its Top 250 "Best Films of the Century" list in 1999, based on a poll of critics. [18] In 2016, Empire ranked the film at No. 52 on its list of "The 100 best British films". [19] In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 13th-best British film ever. [20] The 39 Steps was one of Orson Welles' favourite Hitchcock films, and of it he said, "Oh my God, what a masterpiece." [21] In 1939, Welles starred in a radio adaption of the same source novel with The Mercury Theatre on the Air. [3] [22] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 96%, based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 8.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Packed with twists and turns, this essential early Alfred Hitchcock feature hints at the dazzling heights he'd reach later in his career." [23] In 2021, The Daily Telegraph included the film on its unranked list of "The 100 best British films of all time". [24] In 2022, Time Out magazine ranked the film at No.8 on its list of "The 100 best thriller films of all time". [25]

According to one source, The 39 Steps is copyrighted worldwide [26] but has been heavily bootlegged on home video. [27] Despite this, various licensed, restored releases have appeared on DVD, Blu-ray, and video on demand services from Network in the UK, The Criterion Collection in the US and many others. [3]

Legacy

In chapter 10 of J. D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye , the protagonist Holden Caulfield recounts the admiration that he and his younger sister Phoebe have for the film. [lower-alpha 1]

The comedy play The 39 Steps is a parody of this film version of the story, with a cast of just four people for all the parts. It was written in 1995 by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, a version rewritten in 2005 by Patrick Barlow has played in the West End and on Broadway.

Notes

  1. "Her favorite [movie] is The 39 Steps, though, with Robert Donat. She knows the whole goddam movie by heart, because I've taken her to see it about ten times. When old Donat comes up to this Scotch farmhouse, for instance, when he's running away from the cops and all, Phoebe'll say right out loud in the movie—right when the Scotch guy in the picture says it—'Can you eat the herring?' She knows all the talk by heart..."

Related Research Articles

<i>Young and Innocent</i> 1937 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Young and Innocent, released in the US as The Girl Was Young, is a 1937 British crime thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Nova Pilbeam and Derrick De Marney. Based on the 1936 novel A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey, the film is about a young man on the run from a murder charge who enlists the help of a woman who must put herself at risk for his cause. An elaborately staged crane shot Hitchcock devised, which appears towards the end of the film, identifies the real murderer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Donat</span> English actor (1905–1958)

Friedrich Robert Donat was an English actor. He is best remembered for his roles in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935) and Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), winning for the latter the Academy Award for Best Actor.

<i>The Thirty-Nine Steps</i> 1915 novel by John Buchan

The Thirty-Nine Steps is a 1915 adventure novel by the Scottish author John Buchan, first published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh. It was serialized in All-Story Weekly issues of 5 and 12 June 1915, and in Blackwood's Magazine between July and September 1915, before being published in book form in October of that year. It is the first of five novels featuring Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip and a knack for getting himself out of tricky situations.

<i>Sabotage</i> (1936 film) 1936 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Sabotage, released in the United States as The Woman Alone, is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock starring Sylvia Sidney, Oskar Homolka, and John Loder. It is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's 1907 novel The Secret Agent, about a woman who discovers that her husband is a terrorist agent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Madeleine Carroll</span> English actress (1906–1987)

Marie-Madeleine Bernadette O'Carroll was an English actress, popular both in Britain and in America in the 1930s and 1940s. At the peak of her success in 1938, she was the world's highest-paid actress.

<i>Secret Agent</i> (1936 film) 1936 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Secret Agent is a 1936 British espionage thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, adapted from the play by Campbell Dixon, which in turn is loosely based on two stories in the 1927 collection Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film stars Madeleine Carroll, Peter Lorre, John Gielgud, and Robert Young. It also features uncredited appearances by Michael Redgrave, future star of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (1938), Michel Saint-Denis as the Coachman, and Michael Rennie in his film debut.

<i>Greenmantle</i> 1916 novel by John Buchan

Greenmantle is the second of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character Richard Hannay. It was first published in 1916 by Hodder & Stoughton, London. It is one of two Hannay novels set during the First World War, the other being Mr Standfast (1919); Hannay's first and best-known adventure, The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915), is set in the period immediately preceding the war.

<i>The Pleasure Garden</i> (1925 film) 1925 film by Alfred Hitchcock

The Pleasure Garden is a 1926 British–German silent drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in his feature film directorial debut. Based on the 1923 novel of the same name by Oliver Sandys, the film is about two chorus girls at the Pleasure Garden Theatre in London and their troubled relationships.

<i>Blackmail</i> (1929 film) 1929 film by Alfred Hitchcock

Blackmail is a 1929 British thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Anny Ondra, John Longden, and Cyril Ritchard. Based on the 1928 play of the same name by Charles Bennett, the film is about a London woman who is blackmailed after killing a man who tries to rape her.

Major-General Sir Richard Hannay, KCB, OBE, DSO, is a fictional character created by Scottish novelist John Buchan and further made popular by the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film The 39 Steps, very loosely based on Buchan's 1915 novel of the same name. In his autobiography, Memory Hold-the-Door, Buchan suggests that the character is based, in part, on Edmund Ironside, from Edinburgh, a spy during the Second Boer War, and a British Army field marshal and CIGS.

<i>Rich and Strange</i> 1931 film

Rich and Strange, released in the United States as East of Shanghai, is a 1931 British romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock during his time in the British film industry. The film was adapted by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville, and Val Valentine from the 1930 novel by Dale Collins. The title is an allusion to words of Ariel's song "Full fathom five" in Shakespeare's The Tempest.

<i>Murder!</i> 1930 film

Murder! is a 1930 British thriller film co-written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring and Edward Chapman. Written by Hitchcock, his wife Alma Reville and Walter C. Mycroft, it is based on the 1928 novel Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. It was Hitchcock's third all-talkie film, after Blackmail (1929) and Juno and the Paycock (1930).

<i>Easy Virtue</i> (1928 film) 1928 film

Easy Virtue is a 1928 British silent romance film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Isabel Jeans, Franklin Dyall and Ian Hunter.

<i>The Man Who Knew Too Much</i> (1934 film) 1934 film by Alfred Hitchcock

The Man Who Knew Too Much is a 1934 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, featuring Leslie Banks and Peter Lorre, and released by Gaumont British. It was one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of Hitchcock's British period.

<i>Mary</i> (1931 film) 1931 film

Mary (1931) is a British-German thriller film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and is the German-language version of Hitchcock's Murder! (1930), shot simultaneously on the same sets with German-speaking actors. The film is based on the 1928 book Enter Sir John by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson, and stars Alfred Abel and Olga Chekhova. Miles Mander reprises his role as Gordon Druce from Murder!, though the character's name was changed to Gordon Moore.

<i>The 39 Steps</i> (1959 film) 1959 British thriller by Ralph Thomas

The 39 Steps is a 1959 British thriller film directed by Ralph Thomas and starring Kenneth More and Taina Elg. Produced by Betty Box, it is a remake of the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film, loosely based on the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan.

<i>The Thirty Nine Steps</i> (1978 film) 1978 British film

The Thirty Nine Steps [sic] is a British 1978 thriller film directed by Don Sharp, with screenplay by British playwright Michael Robson, based on the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It was the third film version of the 1915 novel.

<i>The Lady Vanishes</i> 1938 film by Alfred Hitchcock

The Lady Vanishes is a 1938 British mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Margaret Lockwood and Michael Redgrave. Written by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder, based on the 1936 novel The Wheel Spins by Ethel Lina White, the film is about an English tourist travelling by train in continental Europe who discovers that her elderly travelling companion seems to have disappeared from the train. After her fellow passengers deny ever having seen the elderly lady, the young woman is helped by a young musicologist, the two proceeding to search the train for clues to the old lady's disappearance.

<i>The 39 Steps</i> (play) Play written by Patrick Barlow

The 39 Steps is a parody play adapted from the 1915 novel by John Buchan and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock. The original concept and production of a four-actor version of the story was written by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, and premiered in 1996. Patrick Barlow rewrote this adaptation in 2005.

<i>The 39 Steps</i> (2008 film) 2008 television film directed by James Hawes

The 39 Steps is a 2008 British television adventure thriller feature-length adaptation of the 1915 John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps produced by the BBC. It was written by Lizzie Mickery, directed by James Hawes, and filmed on location in Scotland, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Lydia Leonard, David Haig, Eddie Marsan, and Patrick Malahide. Following three screen versions of the novel and the 1952 and 1977 television adaptations of The Three Hostages, Penry-Jones became the sixth actor to portray Hannay on screen. This adaptation is set on the eve of the First World War and sees mining engineer Richard Hannay caught up in an espionage conspiracy following the death of a British spy in his flat.

References

  1. Sullivan, Jack (2008). Hitchcock's Music. Yale University Press. p. 325. ISBN   9780300134667.
  2. Smith, Cecil, "Alfred Hitchcock: Thirty-seven years after '39 Steps'", Los Angeles Times , 27 February 1972: v2.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: The 39 Steps (1935)". Brenton Film. February 2020.
  4. Scragow, Michael (9 July 2012). "Rewatching Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps"". The New Yorker.
  5. Spoto 1999, p. 145.
  6. 1 2 3 Glancy (2003) , pp. 29, 63
  7. "Travelling at the edge of space". University of Strathclyde. 10 March 2010. Archived from the original on 10 March 2012. Retrieved 8 December 2012.
  8. Ebert, Roger (13 October 1996). "Vertigo". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 9 April 2017.
  9. Sennwald, Andre (14 September 1935). "The Screen". The New York Times : 8.
  10. "The 39 Steps". Variety : 21. 19 June 1935.
  11. "The Thirty-Nine Steps". The Monthly Film Bulletin . 2 (17): 72. June 1935.
  12. Mosher, John (14 September 1935). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker . pp. 87–88.
  13. Brehm, Ethan (21 October 2022). "The 15 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies of All Time". HiConsumption. Retrieved 6 January 2023.
  14. "Best Film Performance Last Year". The Examiner . Launceston, Tasmania. 9 July 1937. p. 8. Retrieved 4 March 2013 via National Library of Australia.
  15. Sedgwick & Pokorny 2005, pp. 79–112.
  16. The BFI 100: The 39 Steps". BFI.
  17. "50 Best Book To Movie Adaptations". Total Film
  18. "Take One: The First Annual Village Voice Film Critics' Poll". The Village Voice. 1999. Archived from the original on 26 August 2007. Retrieved 27 July 2006.
  19. Green, Willow (5 September 2016). "The 100 best British films". Empire.
  20. "The 100 best British films". Time Out . Retrieved 24 October 2017
  21. Biskind 2013, p. 156.
  22. "'The Thirty-Nine Steps' – Adaptations". National Library of Scotland. Archived from the original on 7 April 2019. Retrieved 28 March 2017.
  23. "The 39 Steps (1935)". Rotten Tomatoes . Fandango Media . Retrieved 21 December 2021.
  24. "The 100 best British films of all time". The Telegraph. 3 July 2021.
  25. "The 100 best thriller films of all time". Time Out. 23 March 2022.
  26. "Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: Slaying the public domain myth". Brenton Film. 8 August 2018.
  27. "Bootlegs Galore: The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rip-off". Brenton Film. 8 August 2018.

Sources