The 39 Steps [1935] Alfred Hitchcock torrent

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The 39 Steps (1935)

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The 39 Steps is the original 1935 British thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on the adventure novel The Thirty-nine Steps by John Buchan. The film stars Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll.


Robert Donat ... Richard Hannay
Madeleine Carroll ... Pamela
Lucie Mannheim ... Annabella aka Miss Smith
Godfrey Tearle ... Professor Jordan
Peggy Ashcroft ... Margaret - Crofters Wife
John Laurie ... John - Crofter
Helen Haye ... Mrs. Jordan
Frank Cellier ... Sheriff Watson
Wylie Watson ... Mr. Memory
Gus McNaughton ... Commercial Traveller with Pipe (as Gus Mac Naughton)
Jerry Verno ... Commercial Traveller
Peggy Simpson ... Maid

There have been four major film versions of the book. Hitchcocks original has been the most acclaimed, and remains so today: In 1999 it came 4th in a BFI poll of British films, while in 2004 Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie of all time.

Alfred Hitchcock had been a star director in England since his silent film The Lodger (1927) but for the rest of the world, Alfred Hitchcocks fame began with this movie, The 39 Steps (1935). It was as big a hit in America as in England, caught the attention of Hitchcocks future producer David O. Selznick and linked Hitchcocks name forever with light, quickly paced, romantic thrillers.

After years in which Hitchcock had made thrillers only occasionally, Hitchcock had just produced a British hit with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), the story of an innocent family that gets involved with spies. For a follow-up Hitchcock and his producer Michael Balcon turned to the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps (1915) by the suspense author John Buchan. By the time Hitchcock and his scriptwriter Charles Bennett were through the only details remaining from the novel were the chase from London to Scotland and back and the idea that the hero was pursued by the police while he chased the spies.

The resulting screenplay was a marvel of compression. Hitchcock and Bennett broke all the action into a series of set pieces, and then made the transitions between those scenes as rapid as possible. A landlady discovers a womans body and her scream becomes the whistle of a train speeding the hero away from the scene. In another moment, the handcuffed hero smashes through a window in the police station and quickly joins a parade. Exactly how he managed this feat is never explained but with the films speed there is never enough time to wonder.

This desire for taut narratives led to the invention of what Hitchcock would dub the MacGuffin. Based on a Scottish anecdote, the MacGuffin is the thing the spies are after that is of vital importance to the characters but of no importance to the audience. Ignoring the point of the pursuit allowed Hitchcock and Bennett to waste less time in explanation and focus more attention on humor, romance and the mounting suspense.

Hitchcock was an inveterate theatre-goer while he was in England and for this film he picked two actors from the English stage. Robert Donat became a major star playing the hero Richard Hannay in this movie while, for the role of a crofters wife who helps the fugitive hero, Hitchcock chose 27-year old Peggy Ashcroft, later Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Academy Award winner for A Passage to India (1984).

Several women were touted for the female lead before Balcon went to America for British-born Hollywood star Madeleine Carroll. Hitchcock worried that she might be too prim and actressy for the role but he managed to break her of that on the day of her first scene. This was one where she was handcuffed to Donat before the two escape from kidnappers. Locking handcuffs around their wrists, Hitchcock led the actors through a rehearsal then claimed an urgent technical matter was calling him away. Unfortunately he had mislaid the key. Donat and Carroll were left locked together until that afternoon when the key, which Hitchcock had placed in the custody of a studio guard, was retrieved and the frustrated couple were separated. By then, of course, both actors were tired and cranky but much better prepared for their roles.

The resulting movie has been hailed as one of the greatest British films ever made and became the inspiration for countless movies ever since, from Hitchcocks Saboteur (1942) and North by Northwest (1959) to recent hits such as The Fugitive (1993) and Double Jeopardy (1999). Every film where an innocent man looks for the evidence to clear himself while the police close in owes a debt to Hitchcocks The 39 Steps.