- No director handled the wrongfully accused better than Alfred Hitchcock. Of course, few directors handled the legitimately guilty better than Hitchcock either, but there is a special appeal to those of his films in which fate picks some poor schmuck out of the crowd and paints him as a murderer. That's precisely what happens to Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) in The 39 Steps, and it's the same idea that would later reappear in such Hitchcock accomplishments as Saboteur and North by Northwest. For me, the appeal of this situation is that it urges me to consider what I would do if I suddenly found my rather innocent visage on a wanted poster. After rewatching this film, I must admit that I would not have taken Richard Hannay's approach to clearing one's name.
- At the start of the film, Hannay is just an ordinary Canadian on holiday in London. His life suddenly becomes more interesting, however, when he attends a public performance of the mnemonically gifted "Mr. Memory." There, the already rowdy audience is driven to stampede when a gun is fired inside the theatre. Outside, the mysterious Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) convinces Hannay to escort her back to his apartment, where she reveals that she is a spy. Presumably, this is not how Hannay had imagined that the evening would proceed. Naturally, Miss Smith is fleeing a criminal organization led by a man who is missing half a finger and, just as naturally, she ends up with a knife in her back. All Hannay knows is that Miss Smith was going to a small town in Scotland to search for something called "The 39 Steps" and that he had better flee the scene before the police come calling.
- The rest of the film is a dizzying chase that leads Hannay to Scotland on a train, whose shrieking whistle blows just as the landlady discovers the late Miss Smith. The police are soon after Hannay, who, after a failed attempt to hide himself in the arms of his fellow train passenger Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), jumps the train to take his chances on the Scottish moors. He ducks into a farmhouse, where the staunchly religious crofter (John Laurie) and his more worldly wife (Peggy Ashcroft) can only hide him from the authorities for so long. Eventually, Hannay reaches his destination only to stumble into the home of Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), the half-fingered man he was warned about. Jordan shoots Hannay, but thankfully the bullet becomes lodged in the crofter's hymnal. As the sheriff wryly notes, "some of those hymns are terrible hard to get through." Of course, these are only the first of Hannay's many adventures. By the end of the film, he has had to escape through a parade, has become the keynote speaker at a rally for a "Mr. McCrocodile," and has been handcuffed to the reluctantly recurring Pamela ("There are twenty million women in this island and I've got to be chained to you"). All this before he finally realizes who would be most likely to recall the identity of The 39 Steps.
- Much of this film's success is derived from its amusing set of eccentric supporting characters. Take, for example, the milkman who helps Hannay escape from his apartment. The plot only requires that Hannay get out unseen, but the film instead takes a minute to show that this milkman is more likely to assist a cuckolder than a spy ring. Similarly, there is a priest on the train who seems to have an unusual fascination with an overheard discussion of women's underwear. We didn't need to know that, but I certainly enjoyed finding out. Even the farmer's wife is not essential for the plot, although she is so memorable that one can't imagine those scenes without her. These are the marks of an interesting supporting cast. Although Hannay's famous speech claims that he knows "what it is to feel lonely and helpless and to have the whole world against (him)," the film constantly reminds us that he is just one in a crowd of odd little people who populate this world.
- I spotted Hitchcock making a cameo as a litterer.
