The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps is a sort of proto-Hitchcock. One of the earlier films in his career, The 39 Steps explores many of the ideas that would later become staples of his style. It is his second movie to feature a male lead on the run for something he didn’t do, an idea later perfected in North by Northwest. It deals with spies and espionage, with implicit nods to World War II and Nazi Germany, an idea revisited in Notorious. The story centers around a McGuffin, a term Hitchcock himself coined. It has the signature blonde leading lady. It even has the requisite Hitchcock cameo. What it doesn’t have is polish.

Of course, this isn’t surprising. The movie was made in 1935, early in Hitchcock’s career and near the beginning of his transition from silent films to talking pictures. While even an early and unpolished Hitchcock such as The 39 Steps is something special, having seen my fair share of Hitchcock’s classics it is clear to me The 39 Steps is lacking that extra element that makes a movie like Rear Window an all time great.

Like almost every Hitchcock movie, The 39 Steps excels at meticulously planned tension. The movie’s opening scenes draw our lead character, Richard Hannay, into a situation where he has almost nowhere he can turn for help and each attempt he makes at finding his way out only digs him in deeper. Hitchcock deftly uses the twists and turns of the story to keep the audience on their feet, while using the individual scenes to support that goal by drawing tension from the immediate concerns of the main characters in (most) scenes. For example, in a scene where Hannay flees from London to Scotland by train, to seek aid from a potential ally, his discomfort silently mounts as his cabin companions get closer and closer to recognizing his photo in the newspaper they are sharing.

What The 39 Steps struggles to get right is the tight pacing and slick visuals that a more mature Hitchcock would bring to his later movies. For example, one particularly odd bit of pacing involves an extended scene where our hero is taken in by an unsuspecting Scottish family. I believe this is intended as a brief reprieve from Hannay running through the foggy moors, evading the police. The end result, however, is ill conceived and clumsily executed. It doesn’t really move the story forward or reveal anything about Hannay’s character that enriches the movie. It is not entirely purposeless, but the one thing it sets up is so small, and flexible in how it could be accomplished, that the scene just feels extraneous.

Similarly, while there are some moments of brilliance in the visual language of the movie, at other times it is rather pedestrian. For example, in a scene near the midpoint of the movie there is a character who has a valuable secret he is keeping from Hannay. In Vertigo, a similar situation is framed and blocked for maximum emotional weight. In The 39 Steps the camera and characters barely move, so the scene ends up being a bit boring, other than the big narrative reveal.

In addition to the pure thriller elements of the film, there is also a romance brewing between Hannay and Pamela, a woman who finds herself reluctantly drug into the same conspiracy. I think the aim here is something akin to It Happened One Night, where two people who are tied together by circumstance begin to develop feelings for one another. In The 39 Steps this works but only to a point. In It Happened One Night, there is an entire movie for their relationship to blossom. However, in The 39 Steps the characters meet briefly near the beginning of the movie but don’t really interact until well into the second act. So while their relationship is fun, especially when they are hiding out at the inn, it also feels short changed. In other words, the problem isn’t their chemistry, but how little of it we actually get.

It goes without saying that a movie made in the 1930s is going to feel dated. It doesn’t aim for something totally straight forward and timeless, but I don’t think that makes it any less enjoyable. It has its faults. It doesn’t live up to the reputation Hitchcock achieved later in life. On the other hand, why should it? Hitchcock was young and still developing both his skills and his style. It is within that context I find the movie most interesting. The 39 Steps lets us see many of the ideas that came to define the works of a master in their nascent forms.

Would Recommend: If you are interested in studying the complete works of a master filmmaker.

Would Not Recommend: If you expect every film by a master filmmaker to be a masterpiece.