Movie #0004 – The 39 Steps (1935)

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Godfrey Tearle
Second Viewing

Synopsis: After getting mixed up with a spy one night, an innocent man finds himself tangled up in international intrigue, and on the run for a crime he did not commit.

Well, the plan was to watch Adam’s Rib today (which I took out from the library), but the 39 Steps unexpectedly showed up in the mail from Zip.ca. Since I’m paying for Zip and the library is free, I figured it was probably a good idea to watch the Zip movie first.

This is not my first time watching the 39 Steps, but I was definitely happy to revisit it — Hitchcock is one of the all-time greats, and even relatively early in his career he was already hitting them out of the park. Of course, the “innocent man on the run” theme was a favourite of Hitchcock’s, and many of the elements in this film are ones that he spent the rest of his career honing to perfection.

This film really just reminded me why I like Hitchcock so much — when it comes to thrillers like this, he’s clearly in a league of his own. There are so many great sequences in this film, including a really tense sequence towards the beginning of the film set on a train (which begins with the famous moment in which a woman’s scream is replaced by a train’s whistle). The performances are also quite good, particularly Robert Donat as the man on the run.

Up next: Adam’s Rib (for real this time!).

Buy the movie at Amazon