The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps has dropped down the cultural memory hole, forgotten among Alfred Hitchcock’s other well-regarded movies.  But pardon us for sacrilege.  We enjoyed this one far more than North by Northwest or Vertigo.

What are the reasons?  Among others, it passed the Treadmill Test.  The Treadmill Test is one in which we determine a movie’s watchability on our expensive, electricity-sucking gerbil wheel.  If we can run on the treadmill and ignore the time and distance we’ve gone because the movie is entertaining, the movie passes.  Few do.  Once our heartrates climb, everything else slows down.  At top 5k speed, Canary in a Coalmine by the Police sounds like a ballad, and all movies start to feel like they were directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.   But 39 Steps is intriguing until a few moments into the last act, when Hitchcock pauses to titillate us with a scene in which a man and woman are handcuffed together in a hotel bedroom.  But the pause is brief.

The 39 Steps deliberately foregrounds the problem of loyalty to one’s nation-state.  Its main character, Richard Hannay, is a man caught between a murder Scotland Yard thinks he committed and an elaborate spy-ring.  Hannay sneaks around the backcountry of Scotland, trying to preserve the security of his country, in an attempt to expose the spy-ring.  But his own government inadvertently seeks to prevent him from benefiting his country.  Hannay, a patriot, is a loner.  It is worthwhile to note that, in the end, the dominant hand of Hannay is still handcuffed.

Hannay is practically the only person worried about national loyalty.  The other spies, good and bad, have discarded national identity in favor of espionage games.  Meanwhile, the rest of England masses collect in theaters to watch low-grade entertainment.  Chief among that entertainment is Mr. Memory, a man well qualified for the TV gameshow Jeopardy, having stuffed his head with useless information.

The 39 Steps showcases Hitchcock’s skill of manipulating his audience, chiefly by constantly changing Hannay’s status as an escapee, a pursuer, and a captured criminal.   The film travels through the dark, foggy nights in Scotland’s backcountry.   This is, we think, more exciting that watching Jimmy Stewart sit in an apartment and observe his neighbors.  If you want to sample Hitchcock, start here.

Entertainment: 9

Intelligence: 6

Morality: 7