The 39 Steps (1935)

The 39 Steps was on Turner Classic Movies the other night... I can't wait for TCM to be shown in High Def! I used my DVR to record it and my children and I sat down to watch the Hitchcock classic last night. The film was made during Hitchcock's early film career when he was based in England. The 39 Steps was one of the first of his films shot in England that was also successful in the United States and began to pave the way for his eventual move to Hollywood.

The 39 Steps has so many of the classic Hitchcock elements... an dashing and handsome innocent man on the run, spies, war secrets, an educated and identifiable villian and a love interest. Hitchock would recycle these elements over and over again through out his career, fine tuning them, making them better and more effective with each subsequent film.

Also in The 39 Steps were doses of Hitchcock's humor, which is used to great effect to allow the audience to release pent up emotion from previous suspense scenes. There are also the first glimpses of scenic pieces he'll use in later films, such as a villian in a balcony during a performance (The Man Who Knew Too Much), introducing an eventual love interest on a train while avoiding the police (North by Northwest) and looking through binoculars to uncover a major plot point (Rear Window).

Even though the logic of the story is overly simplified by today's standards, the execution of the film is so well done that it is entirely forgiveable. The 39 Steps is a great way to see the seeds of the cinematic language of suspense that are hinted upon by Hitchock in this film and for which he will use to much greater effect later in his career when he reaches his prime in the 50's and 60's.