This is the film that established Alfred Hitchcock. It was made in the early 1930s and is quite dated today.

The story is about a man (played by Robert Donat) who gets caught up in a spy ring called, The 39 Steps. There is a train chase scene and some weird focus on feet (steps, get it?) There is an icy blonde who seems to have it all going for her (Madeline Carroll). The women otherwise seem to fall for Donat's character (for some inexplicable reason) and pay the price.

The music and the scenery are classic Hitchcock and the use of the hand without the finger is quite chilling and advanced for its time. Also, there is a scene where a helicopter is used when it wasn't something that was done at that point in time, so he was way ahead of the world in technology.

I didn't think the story was much, but for its time this was a very advanced piece of cinema. It's on a lot of best movie of all time lists, but I think it's there because it was early Hitchcock and he was, as always, a great story teller.

anyone interested in the history of cinema.

Madeline Carroll. Robert Donat doesn't do anything for me.

I watched this because I watched something else with Robert Donat (Goodbye Mr. Chips) When I watched that, I read about him and saw that he was in what is considered one of the best films of all time - this one. It has a lot of hallmark Hitchcock stuff in it, but it's definitely dated and melodramatic. Still, in the history of the Cinema study, I guess one needs to see it to understand how far filmmaking has advanced.

I really think that Alfred Hitchcock did much better work later on in life, but whatever. This movie is the darling of film critics. I wonder if many of them ever really sat through the whole thing like I did.

I found it to be sort of boring and tedious, unlike most of Hitchcock's stuff. I feel guilty about even writing that and going against the grain of critical thought. Sometimes I think critical thought is half baked.

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Created Jul 22, 2015 at 10:34am • Submit your own review...