When, in 1935, Alfred Hitchcock directs The Thirty Nine Steps, he is already a household name of the European and British cinema, mainly due to a regular and solid string of good movies and, in particular, to the success of the previous' year release, The Man Who Knew Too Much. But it is the favourable results in the USA and worldwide of this movie, loosely based on the 1915 novel written but the Scottish writer and diplomat John Buchan, that opened for the Leytonstone director the doors of Hollywood which, in few years and many movies, will make him one of the most successful directors in movies' history.
The Thirty Nine Steps, retrospectively, codifies some of Hitchcock's canonical hallmarks that are to be found in many of his subsequent films, till the end of his career: the unavoidably blond, beautiful and strong-willed blonde female lead, the male protagonist unwillingly drawn into the plot, the witty dialogues and bickering amongst them till they get together, or are reunited, at the end of the movie, the elliptical chases, where the pursuer is at the same time pursued, the elegant balance between thriller and comedy, the almost absolute freedom to re-write the story, only echoing the chosen literary source.
With a solid narrative, the film adopts some interesting cinematic solutions, like the angles that open and end it, an almost expressionistic black & white lighting for the external takes in the moor, the use of both traditional settings (the theatre, the Scottish reception, the inn) and other much more modern and sophisticated (the moor chase, the farmer's house lighting). Moreover, the two leading characters develops a good chemistry: Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, a Canadian temporary in London who, unwittingly, gets embroiled in an international espionage case that he will be able to brilliantly solve, and Madeleine Carroll, the blonde Pamela chained, first against her will and then willingly, to Hanney. Some shortcuts and illogic passages, quite evident in the building up of the story, don't undermine the charm and balance of a movie that, compared to the British cinema of the time, has a much faster and brilliant pace, both of the story and the script, and that dares, as will Psycho do twenty five years later, push the boundaries of the censorship with the scene where Pamela takes her stocking off while chained to Richard, that many blushes caused in the cinemas in 1935.
Curiously, it is worth mentioning that in the original John Buchan novel the protagonist Richard Hannay was Scottish, like the author, while Hitchcock turns him into a Canadian: the movie will be released in the UK in June 1935, only three months after the nomination and five months before John Buchan took office as Governor General of Canada in Quebec City!
After The Thirty Nine Steps, Hitchcock will direct only few more movies in the UK before moving to Hollywood and release his first American movie, Rebecca, in 1940.
The Thirty Nine Steps, retrospectively, codifies some of Hitchcock's canonical hallmarks that are to be found in many of his subsequent films, till the end of his career: the unavoidably blond, beautiful and strong-willed blonde female lead, the male protagonist unwillingly drawn into the plot, the witty dialogues and bickering amongst them till they get together, or are reunited, at the end of the movie, the elliptical chases, where the pursuer is at the same time pursued, the elegant balance between thriller and comedy, the almost absolute freedom to re-write the story, only echoing the chosen literary source.
With a solid narrative, the film adopts some interesting cinematic solutions, like the angles that open and end it, an almost expressionistic black & white lighting for the external takes in the moor, the use of both traditional settings (the theatre, the Scottish reception, the inn) and other much more modern and sophisticated (the moor chase, the farmer's house lighting). Moreover, the two leading characters develops a good chemistry: Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, a Canadian temporary in London who, unwittingly, gets embroiled in an international espionage case that he will be able to brilliantly solve, and Madeleine Carroll, the blonde Pamela chained, first against her will and then willingly, to Hanney. Some shortcuts and illogic passages, quite evident in the building up of the story, don't undermine the charm and balance of a movie that, compared to the British cinema of the time, has a much faster and brilliant pace, both of the story and the script, and that dares, as will Psycho do twenty five years later, push the boundaries of the censorship with the scene where Pamela takes her stocking off while chained to Richard, that many blushes caused in the cinemas in 1935.
Curiously, it is worth mentioning that in the original John Buchan novel the protagonist Richard Hannay was Scottish, like the author, while Hitchcock turns him into a Canadian: the movie will be released in the UK in June 1935, only three months after the nomination and five months before John Buchan took office as Governor General of Canada in Quebec City!
After The Thirty Nine Steps, Hitchcock will direct only few more movies in the UK before moving to Hollywood and release his first American movie, Rebecca, in 1940.