The 39 Steps
With Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim.
UK, 1935, 35mm, black & white, 81 min.
Freely adapted from John Buchanan’s spy novel, The 39 Steps set the standard for many Hitchcock chase pictures to follow: a charming and smugly self-satisfied man wrongly accused of a crime, his radiant and initially unwilling blonde accompaniment, a MacGuffin to bait the action, a rapidly evolving scenario, magnetic details, and the sneaking suspicion that the whole thing has more to do with sex than espionage. Robert Donat’s troubles begin after he brings a woman spy to his flat on a presumed one-night stand. Her dying words sets him off to the Scottish Highlands—beautifully photographed by Bernard Knowles—in search of a top spy with the telltale missing finger. The wrong man ends up handcuffed to Madeleine Carroll, a screwball turn that offers a fine preliminary sketch of Hitchcockian sexuality (“much teasing, much dissatisfaction, much tussling for dominance,” in the words of Raymond Durgnat).
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Vertigo
To Catch a Thief
The Trouble with Harry
The Paradine Case
Stage Fright
Rebecca
Notorious
Rear Window
Dial M for Murder
Lifeboat
Saboteur
Murder!
Family Plot
Under Capricorn
The Man Who Knew Too Much
Spellbound
Strangers on a Train
Torn Curtain
Suspicion
Shadow of a Doubt
