Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2024 | 42/52 | 1930s
A crowd gathers at a London music hall theatre to see Mr. Memory, a vaudevillian act in which he answers trivia questions asked by the audience. The rowdy crowd gives Mr. Memory a good ribbing, but he remains in good humor and quickly answers the answerable questions. Among the questioners is Canadian Richard Hannay, who asks how far Winnipeg is from Montreal. In proper Brit form, a brawl picks up at the bar. Two discharges of gunfire send people running for the doors.
Outside, a woman asks to come home with Hannay. He consents but doesn’t think of asking her name until they arrive at his apartment. He guesses at her occupation, but she prevents Hannay from turning on the lights before they enter the living quarters. She finds a hiding place away from the windows and asks him to turn the mirror facing them. He complies. She introduces herself as Annabella Smith and says that she fired the shots in the theatre to create a diversion from two men who will stop at nothing to kill her.
“Have you heard of The 39 Steps?” she asks Hannay. When he hasn’t, she continues explaining that she is the only one who can stop them. Her next stop is in Scotland, where she will meet a man. Later that night, Smith burst into the room, telling Hannay to run. She collapses over his lap, a knife in her back and a map in her hand—the phone rings. Hannay looks onto the street and sees two men at the phone booth. He takes the map from her hand. Circled is Alt-na-Shellach in Killin.
Whether he likes it, Hannay is now enmeshed in Smith’s plot. Worse still, he is now the target of a nationwide search for Smith’s murderer. Can Hannay clear his name? What are The 39 Steps?
Though this film doesn’t fall into film noir territory, it certainly has many of its trappings — shadowy alleys, femme fatales, and the MacGuffin from which the troupe gets its name. It also contains several of what would become Hitchcock signatures: an innocent man on the run, a Hitchcock cameo, and “Hitchcock blondes.”
The film explores deception and truth-telling. Those who tell the truth are ridiculed or disbelieved. Only when the truth-teller concocts a more believable lie can they get through to someone. Our Mr. Memory is all about facts, but the audience is more interested in ribaldry and mockery. When Hannay tries to escape his apartment, he tries to get the milkman to give over his coat and hat by telling the milkman the truth. The milkman thinks it’s a joke until Hannay invents a story about a married woman and her suspicious husband.
The screenplay adaptation of John Buchan’s book makes several divergences to turn the lucky accidents of the novel into logical steps for Hannay to take. For example, the map with Alt-na-Shellach circled isn’t in the book—instead, Hannay runs off to hide in Scotland and happens upon this precise location. The film still has moments of coincidence, but they don’t interfere with suspension of disbelief.
The English actors playing Scottish have such pitiful accents! When the crofter’s wife, Margaret, said she was from Glasgow, I couldn’t help but laugh. The actress is Dame Peggy Ashcroft if you’re familiar with her. I suppose the British didn’t want to risk hiring an actor that their audience couldn’t understand.
My biggest complaint is all the non-consensual stuff that Hannay puts Pamela through. It’s the type of stuff Harrison Ford perfected in the 1980s — abuse by any other name.
This movie is so fun! The political speech is such a funny moment—countless movies have imitated it, and I’ll dare say none have done it as effectively. The transition from inside the car to it rolling through the countryside is so clever!