The 39 Steps (1935) Review

When Richard Hannay is in London he gets more than he bargained for when meeting Annabella Smith who claims she is running away from secret agents, he agrees to help her by hiding her but she is murdered during the night and he quickly becomes the prime suspect and must go on the run to save himself.

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Mentioning The 39 Steps was never going to be a good idea for Richard even though he doesn’t even fully know what it is, to begin with anyway he must learn fast in order to keep himself alive. As he must flee from London after the murder of Annabella who had claimed to be a spy and that she fired the shots in the music hall they were both in. As she had a map of the Scottish Highlands clutched in her hand as she told him to leave, he decided to pursue that and got himself on the Flying Scotsman to Scotland. From a newspaper he learns he his the prime suspect for the murder.

From getting on the train it was never going to be an easy journey for Richard and the key to clearing his name seems to be trying to figure out what exactly ‘The 39 Steps’ is and who he can actually trust as even men claiming to be the police are not who they say they are, out of fear the organisation truly believes that Annabella must have told him something especially with the travel to Scotland when all they wanted was to cover the murder and Richard was an easy target for just that.

As with any film from Hitchcock we get suspense and that is exactly what makes a film so thrilling and interesting, we seriously want to know what The 39 Steps is and why they are doing it all. Considering we find out information at the same time as Richard it really does make you engaged and feeling as though you are that character. That really does work in this style of mystery and I have to admit that I thought it was the perfect balance for the story and suspense.

Robert Donat was brilliant in the leading role having such great charm, charisma and presence on screen. Which quite frankly is everything that you need for this type of film, along with good chemistry with Madeleine Carroll.