Classic Film Guide

The 39 Steps (1935)

One of Alfred Hitchcock's favorites, it was his first to use "the innocent man, framed by circumstantial evidence, who must run cross-country from police and spies alike in his frantic attempt to clear himself and find the real enemies of the people", a theme which the director would make his trademark. Robert Donat plays that man in this film, Madeleine Carroll the woman who helps him. A memorable scene in this film involves Donat's landlady finding a body in "his" apartment and screaming at the same time he is seen on a train, with her scream being replaced with the shrill whistle of the train. Based on the famous John Buchan (the British Governor General of Canada) novel of 1915, it was freely adapted by the director, his wife Alma Reville, and Charles Bennett with additional dialogue by Ian Hay.

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