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The 39 Steps
UK 1935
produced by Michael Balcon for Gaumont British
directed by Alfred Hitchcock
starring Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Helen Haye, Frank Cellier, Gus McNaughton, Jerry Verno, Peggy Simpson, Ivor Barnard, Pat Hagate, Elizabeth Inglis, James Knight, Miles Malleson, Quentin McPhearson, Frederick Piper, Hilda Trevelyan, John Turnbull, S.J. Warmington
screenplay by Charles Bennett, dialogue by Ian Hay, based on the novel by John Buchan, music by Hubert Bath, Jack Beaver, Charles Williams, cinematography by Bernard Knowles
review by Mike Haberfelner
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After a brawl has broken out in a music hall during a performance of Mr
Memory (Wylie Watson), Richard (Robert Donat) takes home Annabella (Lucie
Mannheim), a girl he has just met, but who seems to be in trouble. She
soon confesses she's an international spy and wants to keep a state secret
from leaving the UK, but Richard is bemused at best - until that very
night, Annabella is killed, which instantly convinces Richard she was
telling the truth of course, and he also realizes it is now upon him to
keep the secret from leaving Great Britain ... but he has no idea how, and
he finds himself running from the police too, after all he is the prime
suspect in Annabella's murder. Richard's only clue leads him to
Scotland, and he knows that the main baddie of the story misses the end of
one of his fingers ... but when he figures he has found a man to help him
up there in Scotland, Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), he has to realize
he has walked right into a trap, because wouldn't you know it, Jordan
misses the end of one of his fingers ... Somehow Richard manages to get
away, even though Jordan manages to pose as a respectable citizen with
best ties to the police, but along the way, Richard is handcuffed to a
woman, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who at first thinks he's a raving
maniac and does everything to get him arrested - until she has to find out
he's not having illusions at all but is really on the run from foreign
agents, and from that points onwards, she does everything to help him,
even though by now Pamela has freed herself of the cuffs and could get
away from him easily ... and to noone's real surprise the two fall in
love. Eventually, Richard finds himself back in London at another
performance of Mr Memory - to find out that it was Memory himself who had
learned the state secret by heart - so it's not missing from any vaults in
case someone is looking - and it was supposed to be shipped out of the
country that way. But when Richard asks him about the organisation behind
the whole affair - the titular 39 Steps - Memory is shot just like that,
in order to not blow the whistle on anyone. Still, in the end the
baddies get their just desserts, Richard is cleared of all suspicion, and
he gets the girl too.
Hitchcock at his best: A light-footed but
fast-paced tale of espionage, treachery and intrigue, equipped with plenty
of suspense setpieces, but also enough self-irony to iron out the
occasional lacks of reason, storywise. Plus, the direction is slick
without being glossy or impersonal, the leads are a likeable couple and
the cast is pretty much uniformly first rate. A fine film indeed.
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