56 The 39 Steps

[jindianajonz]

So did I miss something, or did the big reveal with Mr Memory not make a lot of sense? He seemed to be working with the digitally challenged antagonist, having put in a lot of work to memorize the secret equation, so why was he so quick to fess up (on stage, no less), to the existence of the 39 Steps?

[Drucker]

I may be displaying a lot of ignorance about Hitch right now, but I thought that was kind of the whole point of the "MacGuffin." That the secret itself isn't the story or that important as much as the journey and the chase is? Based on that last scene, it certainly kind seemed like Mr. Memory was sort of hypnotized, maybe even "trapped" by the member of the 39 Steps. He seemed liberated and freed after giving up the secret, and the way he was being monitored and was instantly shot supports this idea.

This film was pretty much exactly what I was hoping for. I found The Man Who Knew Too Much honestly too frantic to follow in my first viewing. But The 39 Steps hit all the right notes for me. Funny and entertaining and just pitch perfect. The first thing that struck me and is certainly present for at least the first quarter of the movie is how visually beautiful the film is, and how reminiscent of a silent film it is. While this wasn't Hitch's first talkie, the film tells it's story with great visuals that don't necessarily need dialogue. The opening scene at the theater and the ensuing gun shot and hysteria that follows. The murder in the apartment and our protagonist's escape.

Story-wise the film hit all the right notes for me and it's pacing was excellent. The elements of the story and different scenes flowed so perfectly, that when our hero abandons his apartment to go on the lam, we have left the apartment too. Every rabbit-hole that he falls down pulls us and the story with it perfectly. There's never a moment where we think, "wait, what about some circumstance that was left unresolved?" because there are none.

[dustybooks]

So did I miss something, or did the big reveal with Mr Memory not make a lot of sense? He seemed to be working with the digitally challenged antagonist, having put in a lot of work to memorize the secret equation, so why was he so quick to fess up (on stage, no less), to the existence of the 39 Steps?

Here's the passage from Truffuat's book relevant to this question:

Truffaut: Mr. Memory was a wonderful character. I particularly liked the way you handled his death, by making him quite literally the victim of his professional conscience. When Robert Donat, in the music hall, asks him what the 39 steps are, he can't help blurting out the whole truth about the spy ring, and the ringleader, who's in the audience, shoots him dead. It's this kind of touch that gives so many of your pictures a quality that's extremely satisfying to the mind: a characterization is developed to the limit -- until death itself. Within a situation that goes from the picturesque to the pathetic, the incident is handled in the light of a relentless logic that makes the death seem ironic and yet grandiose, almost heroic.
Hitchcock: The whole idea is that the man is doomed by his sense of duty. Mr. Memory knows what the 39 steps are, and when he is asked the question he is compelled to give the answer. The schoolteacher dies in The Birds for the same reason.

In addition, I always sort of assumed that Memory was working with the spies under some sort of duress.

[Shrew]

I think Mr. Memory is like the nun-spy in The Lady Vanishes. He was hired to do a specific job and isn't concerned with the moral implications, but also isn't a regular part of the spy network itself. And his decision to spill the beans about The 39 Steps speaks to a professional pride.

Rohmer and Chabrol's study of Hitchcock focused a lot of the importance of "confession" and the resulting catharsis throughout his filmography. Mr. Memory's final moments fit within that theme. The act of letting his secret out is more important to him than the what, why, or person who's receiving it.

[danieltiger]

I don't know if this is a controversial thought or not, but Robert Donat is very high on my list of favorite Hitchcock male leads. He has a really great combination of humor, wit, and slickness.

About Mr. Memory, am I remembering correctly that it's a huge weight lifted and that he's grateful to Donat's character, because remembering all the details is occupying a tremendous amount of his brain? So Perhaps he was just perfectly happy to follow the rules he had laid out in the game he was publicly playing, simply because he was tired of having to remember that otherwise useless-to-him information.

[domino harvey]

I don't know that Donat would make my list of favorite Hitchcock leads, but he fits the mold of confident, debonair, self-sure characters played by Cary Grant or Robert Cummings (doing the same role more or less in Saboteur)

[jindianajonz]

I may be displaying a lot of ignorance about Hitch right now, but I thought that was kind of the whole point of the "MacGuffin." That the secret itself isn't the story or that important as much as the journey and the chase is?

You are correct, but the MacGuffin in this case is the engine equation; Mr Memory's "reveal" is part of the much more important "chase" for that MacGuffin, and is therefore tougher to just overlook in my opinion. Indeed, the whole film revolves around trying to unravel this plot, and although the chase is fun and exciting throughout, I can't help but feel the end is a bit of a letdown (I had a similar reaction to The Lady Vanishes). We are never find out why the song somehow wedged itself into Hanney's head, and Hitchcock never provides a reason for why the digitally challenged antagonist had to meet with Memory on this particular day, why Memory couldn't write down the equation, or how Memory even managed to infiltrate the British military to obtain this information in the first place. This is distinct from a MacGuffin, which is only there to provide impetus. The entire film is structured around and build towards the big reveals at the climax, yet the end it doesn't offer any satisfactory answers. Indeed, it almost feels like Hitchcock realized this, and after Hanney realizes that Mr Memory is the key to this whole affair, he seeks to end the movie as quickly as possible without even bothering to resolve what happens to the main villain.

This is a shame, because the lead up to the climax at the theater is so great.

Spoiler for Psycho

I've seen it said that the shooting of Hanney serves as a predecessor killing off the supposed lead in Psycho about halfway through the movie, but this film also provides a template for introducing a new protagonist at the same midpoint. It had been a few years since I last watched this, but I was genuinely surprised at how long it took Pamela to reappear in the story.

Additionally, the fog covered Scottish highlands are lovely and atmospheric, and Hitchcock manages to create an impression of a vast expanse despite using medium length shots and shrouding the distance in fog. I also appreciated how the relationship with Hanney and Pamela was developed visually as much as through language- there were a number of scenes were we learn about them by watching them silently react to eachother. I also liked how Hitchcock injected some unneeded yet still appreciated pathos into the middle of the story with the detour into the melancholic life of the Scottish wife. The first 90% of the film is rip-roaring fun, it's just too bad it gets bogged down in its own contrivances at the end.

[ordinaryperson]

I never really understood why so many people liked this film. I just thought it was average, it's making this hard to write about for me. Hannay is on the run from spies. And that's it, I guess you can see the influence it would have on Hitchcock's later films like "Psycho" and "North by Northwest" (another film I thought was average) and even on other films like "The Defiant Ones". Well, guess that's all I can say, I have nothing else to write about.

[danieltiger]

I don't know that Donat would make my list of favorite Hitchcock leads, but he fits the mold of confident, debonair, self-sure characters played by Cary Grant or Robert Cummings (doing the same role more or less in Saboteur)

I haven't seen Saboteur yet, but Cary Grant is definitely a favorite. Also Michael Redgrave in the Lady Vanishes. They all fit that mold. That's what makes Foreign Correspondent, while a film I definitely enjoy, a bit of an oddball to me. Joel McCrea is, to my mind, such a decidedly non-Hitchcock lead. Still, if Hitchcock had gotten his first choice, Gary Cooper, it would be a very different film. Anyway, none of that has anything to do with this film.

[dustybooks]

Well, in defense, this film is what pretty much awakened me to how much movies could really mean to me. It wasn't the first Hitchcock I loved and it didn't even hit me the first time I saw it. But when I picked up the Criterion DVD about twelve years ago and saw the restored print, I just remember being so utterly captivated for the duration. It didn't seem like an "old" movie to me, which started to melt away my perception of what that even meant. I've seen Domino make a similar comment about I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and given how I later felt about that film as well, I'm willing to bet our revelations came along for similar reasons.

It helps that Hannay is such a perfect audience vessel; reasonable, sort of witty, but easy to identify with. More than anything, however, I just feel that this is one of the films that captures an actual feeling of movement -- it has such a breathless rush about it, it seems alive. That's especially true in the chase sequences, I suppose, which have a wonderful sense of time and place to them, but my favorite moment (as jindiana mentioned above) is probably Hannay's encounter with the rural couple. Hitchcock establishes those characters and that relationship in such a short span of time; he'd later introduce similar odd sideline people in Sabotage and Suspicion, for example, to equally great effect. That might be one reason his breeziest thrillers have a feeling of actual travel about them (and except for Sabotage, all six of his Gaumont thrillers hinge on travel). It's as though Ashcroft and Laurie are real people we stop to meet, and thus

Spoiler

when our spatial distance from them is emphasized later with the Bible reveal, it's genuinely jarring to realize how long ago and far away that episode already seems.

It goes back to the force of identification common to all of Hitchcock's best movies -- you are running from the law and making these big sweeping movements and dodging treachery with Hannay. The final reveal was never bothersome to me -- by then, what matters is how all of this falls on the two leads, who are finally safe. At any rate, for me personally this movie feels like running off into oblivion -- its energy still stirs me.

[Black Hat]

Surprised nobody has mentioned Madeleine Carroll yet who to me gives the movie — 80 years later still — a modern life thru her feminism, chemistry with Donat and all around fearlessness. In my view she often gets wrongly credited as being the prototype Hitchcock blonde, but it's only superficial. From a character standpoint she's far more in control of her male counterpart, well rounded, independent and fiery than the blondes who followed.

Domino, I have to disagree with you on comparing Donat to Cummings. While yes they both embark on an adventure to clear their names, but Cummings has zero charisma and frequently gets blown off the screen by whoever is in the scene with him. It's the only Hitchcock film I've seen where I felt far more interested in spending time with other characters than the lead. Where as in The 39 Steps Donat was able to perfectly portray a regular guy caught in the middle of adversity he didn't ask for who had to then evolve into a force of nature to save himself thru what was truly a dynamic performance.

[Black Hat]

The final reveal was never bothersome to me -- by then, what matters is how all of this falls on the two leads, who are finally safe. At any rate, for me personally this movie feels like running off into oblivion -- its energy still stirs me.

I agree. Hitchcock's best films work because of visual style, performer charisma, humor and pace that is so great that by the end of it you don't care about how it wrapped up. His movies are like a soft ice cream cone covered with rainbow sprinkles, I could give a rat's ass much hot air is inside it I just love how it feels when I taste it.

[domino harvey]

Domino, I have to disagree with you on comparing Donat to Cummings. While yes they both embark on an adventure to clear their names, but Cummings has zero charisma and frequently gets blown off the screen by whoever is in the scene with him.

[martin]

I always enjoy watching this film. It's not very deep but it's witty, ironic, sexy.

I'd like to mention a topic Truffaut brought up in his Hitchcock interviews. During the scene in Donat's flat at the start of the film Donat looks out of the window and sees two spies down on the street. This is shot from Donat's POV which enhances the sense of paranoia. In a 1950's remake, however, there were "two or three close shots of the spies in the street. Because of this the scene loses its whole impact", according to Truffaut (I haven't seen this remake myself).

The sheer craftsmanship is really impressive in these early Hitchcock films. The shots are well thought-out and are always serving a purpose.

I also love the irony in the film. When Donat and Carroll have to spend the night at the inn, he says they're a runaway couple. The innkeeper's wife believes them immediately. Likewise when Donat had to borrow the milkman's uniform: As soon as Donat said he was involved in an adulterous affair, the milkman believed him right away! But when Donat or Carroll are telling the real truth (to the police, for instance) no-one believes them. The wife of the religious couple in the Scottish Highlands is the only exception, I think. She seems to believe Donat's true story and is trying to help him. But then she's erroneously accused for adultery by her jealous husband (although there's a sexual undercurrent in this scene too).

We should also notice how effortlessly Donat (or rather Donat's character) is able to take the role of a political speaker or how he is able to join a marching band, while he is struggling to convince anyone of his real self - something that has been noticed by many writers, like Zizek, if I'm not mistaken.

There's a lot of sexual innuendo in the film. I was really shocked when I saw it the first time. It's almost like a pre-code Hollywood film, I guess.

Spoiler

When Donat and Carroll are going to bed (while handcuffed) he says: “Will you kindly place yourself on the operating table?” Her shocking face says it all: She's like, 'what are you going to do to me?' His reply is like: 'Hey, it's Armistice Day, I'm not going to touch you'.

Freudians will no doubt find it meaningful when he starts working on the handcuffs with the nail file and also says: “One gets hardened.”

Most of the sexual innuendos are Hitchcock's additions (or his writer's), it's not there in the source novel. The way Hitchcock adapts source novels could be another interesting subject for discussion, but probably beyond the scope of this thread. John Buchan's novel is in public domain and available at the Project Gutenberg. This makes it quite easy to compare the film and the novel, because of the text search options. Try, for instance, to search for milkman to see how the milkman scene plays out in the novel.

And I have to agree with Drucker. There are some beautiful set designs in The 39 Steps. I particularly like the expressionistic ones – particularly in Donat's flat. It has sometimes been suggested that the fact that Hitchcock worked in German studios in the silent era has influenced him. I've even read that Donat's character in The 39 Steps can be seen as some sort of Mabuse (although a hero instead of a villain) which to me seems a bit far fetched. But there's no doubt to me that some sort of German influence is visible in The 39 Steps although such influence is far more noticeable in Hitchcock's silent films like Downhill or The Lodger.