Alfred Hitchcock, 1935.
Recently I have been exploring the world of older films, black and white films and Hitchcock films, and I saw The 39 Steps on Prime Video, stuck it on without knowing anything about it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The 39 Steps is about an everyman civilian in London called Richard Hannay, who gets wrongly accused of murder of a double spy agent, he goes on the run to Scotland. On the way he gets tangled up with a spy ring, and something called "The 39 Steps". The mystery and intrigue of this film really took me by surprise, and the charm of it really makes it easily watchable. The performance of Hannay by Robert Donat was extremely good for that time, and like most Hitchcock projects, the film and story is way way ahead of its time.
Of course some of the acting is cheesy and a bit slapstick, but once again, the classic 30's/40's everyman character, combining with a femme fatale character, played by Madeline Carroll, added with an espionage-type storyline made for great viewing.
This is Hitchcocks's first real 'Hitchcockian' style film. It features an innocent man on the run, a blonde love interest, interesting and clever camera angles, suspenseful sequences and humorous, flirty dialogue. All his usual characteristics that we will get to know later in his filmography really gel for this first time in the movie.
Straight from the first scene, in which Donat's character is attending a show about a man called 'Mr Memory', you are intrigued. A shot rings out after some rowdy crowd antics, and the story unfolds from there.
The movie as a finished product its self is a little dated, but I didn't think that put me off once, the story gripped me, and the journey Hannay goes on distracts from everything else, including the fuzzy sound, which honestly isn't that bad anyway, its to be expected, the film is 62 years older than me!
This film is definitely a suspense movie that has very large doses of comedy, and can easily be seen the other way, but it really has a bit of everything. Espionage, romance, thriller aspects, comedy, suspense. This really set the tone for films like this, that will be made popular especially in the 1940's. From a direction point of view the shots are incredible as always with Hitchcock, with beautiful landscape shots of Scotland, and it has a lot of intentional haze, which creates a mysterious atmosphere.
It's well made, well acted and lots of fun, and I really got in to the storyline. Without spoiling it, I really loved the ending. This is a charming film that like I said before is way ahead of it's time, and is definitely worth a watch. If you love films but have never really explored old British 'talkies', this would be a great watch for your first one.
I felt an instant connection with this film, and this honestly would be one of my favourite films from this era, and would be up there for my favourite Hitchcock films. I couldn't recommend this more, its a short but very sweet watch.
My rating: 9/10
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