Production
The script was originally written by Charles Bennett, who prepared the initial treatment with Hitchcock; Ian Hay then wrote extra dialogue.
Changes from Page to Screen
The film’s plot departs from John Buchan’s novel; scenes in the music hall and on the Forth Bridge are absent from the book.
Hitchcock also introduced two major female characters, Annabella the spy and Pamela, the reluctant companion.
In this film, The 39 Steps refers to the clandestine organization, whereas in the book and other versions it refers to physical steps, with the German spies being called “The Black Stone.”
Annabella tells Hannay that she is travelling to meet a man in Scotland (and produce map with Alt-na-Shellach house circled) Hitchcock avoids the coincidence in Buchan’s novel where Hannay chances to walk into the house where the spy ringleader lives.
The 39 Steps was a major British film–production company, Gaumont-British, was eager to establish its films in international markets, especially in the U.S.
Stars Dictate Budget
Hitchcock’s previous film, The Man Who Knew Too Much, had cost o£40,000, The 39 Steps cost nearly £60,000.
Much of the extra money went to the star salaries for leads Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. Both had already made films in Hollywood and were known to American audiences. At a time when British cinema had few international stars, this was vital to the film’s success.
Aircraft Use
Hitchcock had heard that Scottish industrialist and aircraft pioneer James Weir commuted to work daily in an autogyro and worked the aircraft into the film.
Collaborations with Musician Jessie Matthews
Hitchcock had worked with Jessie Matthews on Waltzes from Vienna and did not like her much. Nevertheless he used the song “Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle ” (from the film Evergreen which starred Matthews) as the music underscoring Mr. Memory’s dying words and fade-out music.
He also used orchestrated version of her song “May I Have The Next Romance With You” in the ballroom sequence of his 1937 film Young and Innocent.
Auteurism: Recurrent Theme–Innocent Man on the Run
The 39 Steps is one of Hitchcock films based upon an innocent man forced to go on the run, like The Lodger (1926), Saboteur (1942), North by Northwest (1959).
Hitchcock MacGuffin
The film contains Hitchcock MacGuffin (plot device vital to the story, but overall irrelevant); here, the designs for secret silent airplane engine.
Hitchcock cameo (2 in this film)
A signature occurrence in most of his films, here Hitch cameo arrives about 7 minutes into the film, with Hitchcock and the scribe Charles Bennett seen walking past a bus that Robert Donat and Lucie Mannheim board outside the music hall. The bus is on London Transport’s number 25A route, which ran from Oxford Street through the East End and on to Ilford.
This was familiar ground to Hitchcock, who lived in Leytonstone and then in Stepney (East End) as youth. The director’s appearance asserts his connection with the area, but not in nostalgic or romantic way. As the bus pulls up, he litters by throwing a cigarette packet on the ground.
Hitchcock is also seen briefly as audience member trying to leave the music hall after the shot is fired in the opening scene.
Killing the Hero–Midway?
Hannay is shot in the chest with a pistol at close range, and a long fade-out suggests that he had been killed. This unusual developmen main character demised while the plot is still unfolding—anticipates Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), and the murder of Marion Crane in the Bates Motel.
But Hannay did notreally die–in the next scene it is revealed that a hymn book in the pocket of his borrowed coat prevented the bullet from killing him.
Hitchcock’s Femmes Fatales
The film established Madeleine Carroll as a typical Hitchcock heroine–ice-cold, seemingly remote, elegant leading ladies, usually blondes.”
Dressed in a manner that subtly combined high fashion with fetishism, they captivated men, who were often damaged with physical or psychological handicaps.”
Crucial sequences are set in familiar locations: King’s Cross station, Piccadilly Circus station, and dramatic sequence on the Forth Bridge.
Critical Response Upon Release
Andre Sennwald of the N.Y. Times wrote: “If the work has any single rival as the most original, literate and entertaining melodrama of 1935, then it must be The Man Who Knew Too Much, which is also out of Hitchcock’s workshop. A master of shock and suspense, of cold horror and slyly incongruous wit, he uses the camera the way a painter uses his brush, stylizing his story and giving it values which the scenarists could hardly have suspected.”
Variety wrote that “International spy stories are most always good, and this is one of the best, smartly cut, with sufficient comedy relief.”
The Monthly Film Bulletin described it as “First class entertainment. Like all melodramas, in which the hero must win, the story contains some very lucky accidents, but Hitchcock’s direction, the speed at which the film moves, and Donat’s high-spirited acting get away with them and the suspense never slackens.”
John Mosher of the New Yorker wrote “Speed, suspense, and surprises, all combine to make The 39 Steps one of those agreeable thrillers that can beguile the idle hour…”
There’s consensus about the film’s importance in the director’s catalogue. Hitchcock was influenced by Russian silents and German expressionism, but mad each frame his own, and has some early fun with POV here in the process.
Critical Status Later
It was voted the best British film of 1935 by The Examiner (a Tasmanian publication) in a public poll.
It was the 17th-most-popular film at the British box office in 1935–36.
Of the four film versions of the novel, Hitchcock’s has been the most highly praised.
In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked it the fourth-best British film of the 20th century.
In 2004, Total Film named it the 21st-greatest British movie ever made, and in 2011 ranked it the second-best book-to-film adaptation of all time.
The Village Voice ranked The 39 Steps at number 112 in its Top 250 “Best Films of the Century” list in 1999, based on a poll of critics.
In 2016, Empire ranked the film at No. 52 on its list of “The 100 best British films”.
In 2017, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine saw it ranked the 13th-best British film ever.
Orson Welles Praise
The 39 Steps was one of Orson Welles’ favorite Hitchcock films: “Oh my God, what a masterpiece.”
In 1939, Welles starred in radio adaption of the same novel with The Mercury Theatre on the Ai
This essential early Hitchcock feature hints at the dazzling heights he’d reach later in his career.”
In 2021, The Daily Telegraph included the film on its unranked list of “The 100 best British films of all time.
In 2022, Time Out magazine ranked the film at No.8 on its list of “The 100 best thriller films of all time”.
The 39 Steps is copyrighted worldwide but has been bootlegged on home video. Despite this, various licensed, restored releases have appeared on DVD, Blu-ray, and video on demand services from Network in the UK, The Criterion Collection in the US and many others.
In chapter 10 of J. D. Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye, the protagonist Holden Caulfield recounts the admiration that he and younger sister Phoebe have for the film.
“Her favorite movie is The 39 Steps, though, with Robert Donat. She knows the whole goddam movie by heart, because I’ve taken her to see it about ten times. When old Donat comes up to this Scotch farmhouse, when he’s running away from the cops and all, Phoebe’ll say right out loud in the movie—right when the Scotch guy in the picture says it—’Can you eat the herring?’ She knows all the talk by heart…”
Recycling:
The comedy play “The 39 Steps} is a parody of this film, with a cast of four people for all the parts. It was written in 1995 by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon; a version rewritten in 2005 by Patrick Barlow has played in West End and on Broadway.
Sullivan, Jack (2008). Hitchcock’s Music. Yale University Press. p. 325.
