Criterion Classics: Alfred Hitchcock’s 'The 39 Steps' (1935)
AS THE STREAMING WARS WAGE ON, THE CRITERION CHANNEL HAs MADE IT EASIER THAN EVER FOR THE FILMMAKERS OF TOMORROW TO FIND THE GEMS OF YESTERDAY
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD
It’s November or should I say, NOIRvember?! This month, I went deep diving into the ocean of films that make up this hugely influential corner of cinema. Film noir is a flexible term used to describe both a subgenre of the crime, thriller and mystery genres as well as a stylistic technique in filmmaking that was popular worldwide from the 1930s to the 1950s. Most similar pictures produced after these decades are considered Neo-Noir but that’s for another time. Films that employ the noir stylization might use heavy shadows and stark lighting, silhouettes and metropolitan settings but the concept goes beyond mere mis-en-scene. Let’s explore this enigmatic landscape through the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock classic, ‘The 39 Steps.’
‘The 39 Steps’ is Hitchcock’s eleventh film in the ‘talkie’ era before color film and while he was still working in the U.K. It not only utilizes the aforementioned visual language, the plot is a film noir playbook. Like much of the genre, ‘The 39 Steps’ story involves murder, espionage and police; with a love story to boot. The leading lady of the film is definitely another staple of the stereotypical noir story, the femme fatale or; a woman who the protagonist is attracted to but one who will bring misfortunes upon him.
The popularity of the genre comes from the adoration of detective and gangster novels like ‘The Big Sleep’ by Raymond Chandler which was later adapted into a 1946 movie by Howard Hawks. Same goes for 1941’s ‘The Maltese Falcon,’ a John Huston film adapted from a Dashiel Hammet novel of the same name or Agatha Christie’s ‘Murder On The Orient Express’ which has been produced for the big screen several times. These ‘whodunnit’ novels explored themes of corruption, greed and guilt offering narrative puzzles for the readers to solve.
In “The 39 Steps,” Hitchcock introduces the protagonist, Hannay, played by Robert Donat, by keeping the camera aimed at the mans back and legs as he enters a music hall; careful not to reveal his face. When his face is shown, it’s in a crowd of people further building mystique until he gets a closeup asking an arbitrary question to a man, Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson), performing memory tricks on stage. These framing choices instantly get the viewer asking, “who is this mysterious man?”
After a fight breaks out at this performance, a blink and you’ll miss it shot of a gloved hand shooting a shiny pistol causes the entire crowd to flee the scene; the inciting incident of the screenplay. Outside, Hannay meets a young woman introduces herself as Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) and stays the night with him. She reveals that she is a spy with loyalties to “no country” but is trying to protect a secret formula for England. She explains she fired the shots at the music hall to distract and evade other assassins and asks Hannay if he has ever heard of “39 Steps.” In this heavy expositional exchange, she does’t define the 39 Steps but describes the assassin’s leader and his missing pinky finger. The scene ends and later that night, she stumbles into his room with a knife in her back.
This leads to one of the greatest editing cuts of all time. While Hannay gets away on a train, Hitchcock cuts back to his flat where Miss Smith was murdered. A housekeeper finds the body, turns toward camera and opens her mouth to scream but we match cut back to the train whistle blowing as it comes out of a mouth-like tunnel toward camera. There is another beautiful hidden cut later when Hannay and Pamela (Madaleine Carroll) are having a dialogue scene inside a car and the camera moves away from this closeup to a wide shot outside of the car with no visible editing. There weren’t steady-cam systems or advanced computerized crane movement to pull this move off in 1935; it took a sharp imagination and knowhow of the editing process.
Evading police for the murder of Miss Smith, Hannay kisses a random woman, who we later meet as the aforementioned Pamela, and begs her to pretend they’re a couple but she gives him up. After an exciting chase on the train, Hannay offers a farmer money to stay at his house. Hitchcock brilliantly employs his famous “show the bomb” technique to create tension. The next morning, a shot out of the window shows a police car coming over the hill - show the audience a ticking bomb . Then, when the police are knocking at the door the suspense is at it’s breaking point as we wonder if the farmer will sell him out - will the bomb explode? Finally, he escapes out the backdoor thanks to the farmer’s wife - bomb diffused.
Following a lead to Scotland, Hannay meets Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle) who revealed to be the leader of the assassins by his missing pinky finger. The professor shoots Hannay but Hannay is conveniently saved by a hymn book in the breast pocket of the farmer’s coat. After getting captured by police and just as quickly escaping them, Hannay gives an ironic yet poignant speech as he impersonates a political advocate at a town hall. A seemingly random divergence but a welcome break of levity and positivity.
There, he runs into Pamela who, once agains turns him over to what she believes are detectives but are actually the two assassins that murdered Miss Smith. Hannay kidnaps but also saves Pamela’s life by hiding out under a waterfall in the woods before checking into a hotel under a pseudonym all while holding her at gunpoint. The two assassins come to the hotel, drop some info about meeting at the London Palladium and leave. The next day, Pamela heads to Scotland Yard to have them look into something being stolen from the British air force which turns up bupkis so she meets up with Hannay at the London Palladium. While there, Hannay recognizes the performer, Mr. Memory from the opening of the film and realizes he’s the person who knows the secret Miss Smith died over. As Hannay is about to be arrested at the performance, he yells out to Mr. Memory “What are the 39 Steps?” Mr. Memory robotically replies, “the 39 Steps’ is an organization of spies collecting information on the behalf of…” but he is shot by Professor Jordan before he can finish. The professor jumps down from his balcony seat like John Wilkes Booth and is quickly apprehended. Hannay asks Mr. Memory what the secret was and he starts describing a blueprint for a silent plane engine before dying from the gunshot. The camera dollies out as Hannay and Pamela grab each other’s hand.
Like the modern Illuminati conspiracy or other Big Brother tales, secret society stories are compelling in any medium. ‘The 39 Steps’ takes two innocent people getting wrapped up in international espionage to a thrilling level. Although not as commanding of a presence as Humphrey Bogart’s tough-as-nails Sam Spade, Robert Donat as Hannay was a charming everyman that pieced together a plot as perfectly as Agatha Christie’s Detective Poirot. While the love story is pretty problematic with the whole sexual assault, kidnapping and Stockholm Syndrome of it all, it’s also unclear if Hannay was still charged for murder so maybe poor Pamela got away from that madman.
There are definitely directorial elements in ‘The 39 Steps’ that showcase Hitchcock’s signature style and overall expertise that won him the title of “Master of Suspense.” From the inventive camera movements and compositions to his witty dialogue, there’s just that certain flavor of filmmaking that is wholly his own. If you’re looking for somewhere to start in the film noir genre, this is an excellent glimpse into the world and isn’t, as Hannay says, “that the sort of world you want?”