39 Steps

A Gaumont-British Film

Produced by Michael Balcon. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay and Adaptation by Charles Bennett and Alma Reville. Based on the novel by John Buchan. Additional Dialogue by Ian Hay. Cinematography by Bernard Knowles. Edited by Derek N. Twist. Music by Louis Levy. 87 min.
Cast: Robert Donat (Richard Hannay), Madeleine Carroll (Pamela), Lucie Mannheim (Miss Smith-Annabella), Godfrey Tearle (Professor Jordan), Peggy Ashcroft (Mrs. Crofter), John Laurie (Crofter, the Farmer), Helen Haye (Mrs. Jordan), Frank Cellier (The Sheriff), Wylie Watson (Mr. Memory).

	One of the true bona-fide classics in the history of the cinema, THE 39 STEPS is one of those happy experiences that should be revisited as often as possible in order to get a full understanding of Hitchcock’s style. Based on the famous 1915 novel by John Buchan, the film bears very little resemblance to the actual novel after the screen adaptation by Charles Bennett and Alma Reville (Mrs. Alfred Hitchcock). Although the screenwriters were concerned that the author would be totally offended after seeing the film, his reaction was surprisingly positive and he freely admitted that Hitch’s version was a decided improvement over his own book! Filmed almost entirely at the Lime Grove Studio, Hitch sent a second unit to film exteriors on the Scottish moors and neighboring villages, using doubles to portray the two leads. Robert Donat, who had made quite the impression in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and The Count of Monte Cristo, (1934) was fast becoming one of England’s hottest new stars while Madeleine Carroll’s career was also on the rise.
A former French teacher and model before making her London stage debut in 1927, Miss Carroll, whose regal beauty and elegance decorated many a British film in the early thirties, became an overnight success following this and her next film, which happened also to be directed by Hitchcock, The Secret Agent (1936). Accepting an invitation by producer Walter Wanger to make pictures for him in 1936, where she signed a non-exclusive contract, she would appear in some of the biggest films of the period, such as Lloyds of London, The General Died at Dawn (both 1936) and David O. Selznick’s ultimate swashbuckler/romance extravaganza The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). By the next decade, after becoming an American citizen, she worked in films less and less and returned to England for a spell to work in war relief after her sister was killed in the London Blitz. She retired from movies in 1949 and later settled in France.

The general theme for THE 39 STEPS is something that the director would use time and time again in films like Young and Innocent (1937), Saboteur (1942) and mostly notably in North by Northwest (1959), where an innocent man is accused of a crime with the authorities hot on his trail, while he is pursuing the real culprit. With only an 87 minute running time, the film’s pacing is letter-perfect with many great memorable set pieces. One of the best where the director utilizes picture and sound is a quick shot of a cleaning lady walking into Robert Donat’s apartment and discovering the lifeless body of murder victim Lucie Mannheim. All the viewer sees is a door in the foreground opening with the back of a woman’s head in the forefront and a corpse lying on the floor.

Suddenly, the woman turns to the camera in stark close-up and begins to scream with a jump-cut to a train whistle blaring loudly, substituting for the inevitable scream. All of this is done in approximately eight seconds and the effect is harrowing.
Although it is a murder mystery/spy thriller, Hitchcock, as always, interjects a substantial amount of humor, with some great one-liners, especially during the scene where both Mr. Donat and Ms. Carroll are forced to spend the night together in a country inn, handcuffed together in the same bed, even though they despise one another. The dialogue here is delivered expertly with both stars in top form. It’s too bad this perfect teaming wasn’t reprised in a follow-up movie a few years later!

As always in a Hitchcock movie, the planning was well laid out, with the director using storyboards, sketching intricate drawings of each individual take for each scene, complete with camera angles. According to Hitch, he felt that all of the hard work in making the picture was over once these drawings were all properly laid out. He felt that the actual shooting was anti-climatic. In the case of THE 39 STEPS, though, he found, to his dismay, that things don’t always go as planned, even if all of the preparation has been worked out perfectly. When it came time to shoot the scene where Richard Hannay (Donat) and Pamela (Carroll) are caught by enemy spies and are being transported by automobile through a Scottish countryside, Hitchcock felt that they should bring in some real sheep for added authenticity.

Since this was all filmed on an indoor set on a sound stage, bringing in sixty-two sheep turned out to be a very costly and fragrant affair. First, the pungent odor from the livestock among other haphazard occurrences proved sickening to the cast and crew, but the worst part of the whole episode was when the animals began eating the set! Luckily, they shot everything with one take each and were able to herd the animals off of the set!

Released in the UK in June of 1935, the film received glowing accolades, where both the stars and the director were given due praise in all of the reviews. American audiences were likewise enthusiastic when it was released in the US at the Roxy Theatre in Manhattan on August 1st. Of Hitchcock, the New York Times honored their new filmmaker genius, stating, “A master of shock and suspense, of cold horror and slyly incongruous wit, he uses his camera the way a painter uses his brush, stylizing his story and giving it values which the scenarist could hardly have suspected. Perhaps the identifying hallmark of his method is its apparent absence of accent in the climaxes, which are upon the spectator like a slap in the face before he has set himself for the blow. There is a subtle feeling of menace in Mr. Hitchcock’s low-slung, angled use of the camera.”

In 1959, director Ralph Thomas decided to remake the film as a vehicle for Kenneth More and Taina Elg. Aside from the beautiful locations, the acting and direction were nothing more than an extremely sluggish affair. Nineteen years later, the property was taken off of the shelf, dusted down and was remade yet again, but this time they used much more of the actual novel and placed the actors (Robert Powell and Karen Dotrice) in the book’s original period. The results were an improvement over the 1959 remake, but it still couldn’t hold a candle to the 1935 Hitchcock masterpiece.

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