We never actually learn what The 39 Steps are. I guess, spoilers for a movie that is eighty-eight years old, but it’s curious how after so much build-up, the evil organization pursuing the hero of Alfred Hitchcock’s early spy movie is defined as merely a secretive spy organization gathering intelligence on behalf of a foreign office -but before we can learn more specifics the man dispensing this information dies. We can rest easy that the apparent ringleader is apprehended, but what were the 39 Steps? And does it even matter?
The movie The 39 Steps certainly does. One of the first recognizable films in the spy genre it also happens to be one of the more renowned of Alfred Hitchcock’s early British films -alongside The Lodger and The Lady Vanishes. And certainly it bears more than a few of his future signatures. It’s a beloved classic of British cinema, one that I first knew about as the basis of a play that was running popularly in London during my first visit there. Plastered at the top of it’s wikipedia page is the praise of legendary screenwriter Robert Towne, identifying it as the genesis of much of modern escapist entertainment. And that may seem a quaint comment looking at the movie now, but I can understand it. The movie is rather fast-paced and thrilling where a lot of other movies, especially in Britain, weren’t up to that point. It features chases and stunt-work (or at least the allusion of it), murder and international espionage –yet with a relative everyman at the centre of it all. It’s not difficult to see the roots of so many subsequent movies, genres, and sub-genres in this modest hour and a half picture.
It is based, however loosely, on a novel by John Buchan, incidentally a future Governor General of Canada. That’s not the only Canadian connection, as the film’s protagonist Richard Hannay is a visitor to London from Montreal, though British actor Robert Donat puts on merely a transatlantic accent to convey this. As far as I can tell this was an invention for the movie, the Hannay of the book (who featured in several other novels by Buchan) was, like his author, Scottish. Regardless, he’s introduced here at a music hall show of a man with extraordinary recall, asking what the distance is between Montreal and Winnipeg. Shortly after, a gunshot disperses the crowd, and he is met by a woman called Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) who claims assassins are after her because she has learned of a plot by “the 39 Steps” to steal military secrets. When she is killed at his flat, their target turns to Hannay, while at the same time he is framed for her murder –resulting in a manhunt as he flees to Scotland and in search of authorities he can trust.
The premise sounds maybe a tad familiar to those who know Hitchcock’s more famous films, particularly North by Northwest, likewise about a framed man on the run from a powerful organization he knows little about. From the tense scenes on the train to the confrontation at the villain’s manor to even a police chase involving a gyroplane through Scottish farmland that seems to directly predict the iconic crop-duster sequence from the later movie, the DNA of North by Northwest is to be found everywhere. Hitchcock shot each of these though without a Hollywood budget, and yet still renders them exciting through sharp cutting between characters, use of background effects (like where Hannay escapes through the outer door of a train to climb into another compartment from the outside), and in one critical moment, a close-up of a gun just as it’s about to fire at someone, to shake the audience. And each of these choices effectively does that, Hitchcock demonstrating his early knack for engaging directly and dramatically through the action on-screen with his viewers.
And Donat is a pretty good actor to have at the centre of it. He’s a bit of an anonymous figure of the classic movie era, known mostly to Oscar buffs for winning Best Actor for Goodbye, Mr. Chips in what must have been considered an upset over Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind. He has that classic British dignified attitude, even when playing a Canadian, is a touch on the posh side and yet is still relatable. Late in the film some of this is shed where he shows a certain sexual charisma in his partnership with a woman and a new dedication to not just escaping but continuing Annabella’s mission to expose the 39 Steps’ plot. But he still makes for a mostly grounded character whose situation you can sympathize with. It’s interesting to see though, how even as Hannay is not a spy, the future spy movie archetypes are present nonetheless. Godfrey Tearle makes for a great villain as Professor Jordan, an elegant mastermind who loves the sound of his own voice, running the shadowy organization from his Scottish mansion at Alt-na-Shellach. He even has henchmen in the form of local community allies.
Then there’s Pamela, played by Madeleine Carroll, an early Hitchcock blonde, who is somewhat both femme fatale and love interest. The former is mostly conveyed through the comical beats of her just refusing to go along with Hannay’s attempts at a ruse and giving him up at a moment’s notice -first in the carriage and then at a political meeting where he is hiding out as a lead speaker (the movie is honestly pretty funny in places, like here where Hannay improvises a rousing speech -I see why the material was re-spun as comedy decades later). Subsequently, Hannay and Pamela wind up handcuffed together, finally involving her in the plot as he drags her into an escape and I can’t help but feel the banter they share as they trudge through the countryside is a direct imitation of It Happened One Night -which was the biggest movie hit of the year before. Carroll compliments Donat well, even as both characters become harsher in each other’s presence -as though Hannay suddenly imbued with sexual traits has to match them with a more hardened masculinity. In a pretty hilariously contrived way, she learns the truth while they stay at a hotel and then is his simple accomplice for the remainder of the movie.
A harried pace characterizes this last act, and yet the story’s thrills don’t suffer much for it. Indeed, the film is sternly focused all the way through. It is a highly efficiently written piece, without a wasted moment –and yet the story has its brief reprieves, like in Hannay’s stay with a crofter couple played by John Laurie and future British acting royalty Peggy Ashcroft (in one of her rare early film appearances). There’s a subtle flirtatiousness to his relationship with the wife who ultimately gives him the hymnal that saves his life –another sign perhaps of the Bond-like figure hidden within Hannay. The tone of the action bears that comparison out, but it is also more than a little tongue-in-cheek. The film is, I understand, fairly different from it’s source material; and I do wonder if Buchan’s novel has quite so many pulpy undertones. It serves the movie well however, and Hitchcock’s sensibilities –which were always so much more populist than his technique might suggest. That technical prowess is on full display though –the movie is full of those interesting shot compositions and compelling camera choices that he would come to be known for. Not to mention the signature cameo, which occurs early and made me realize I’d never seen Hitchcock this young (at thirty-five he looks the same as ever).
The movie comes to a very swift conclusion that, as I mentioned earlier, isn’t much of a conclusion at all. Presumably with Jordan caught, some authority will find out what exactly the 39 Steps are, but it’s not for the audience to know. And yet there’s nothing to be gained by knowing; like the nebulous enemy of the Top Gun movies, the era’s general geopolitical coding should be enough. And The 39 Steps is plenty interesting without, as an early action movie and espionage movie that is both nifty to it’s time and holds up fairly well. The film was remade several times, in 1959 with Kenneth More, in 1978 with Robert Powell and in 2008 with Rupert Penry-Jones, but this version still stands as the definitive one –at least the most culturally important and influential. A charming bit of early British cinema, one of the first great touchstones for Hitchcock, a genre landmark, and not a bad showcase of Highland Scotland to boot.
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