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The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1939)
🕑 Added 2021-04-17 20:00:37 +0000 UTC
Watching these Hitchcock films recently, I noticed something I was doing somewhat unconsciously. As I logged them onto Letterboxd, I found myself refraining from automatically clicking on the "like" heart icon. Where Lifeboat and Notorious were concerned, I went back and clicked the like-button afterwards, but as I logged The 39 Steps (version one), I had a moment of reflection. Why am I initially reluctant to declare myself as having "liked" these classic films?
Of course, this is all somewhat meaningless. As with most social-media gestures, there is a generic up-or-down quality to these auto-judgments, and the fact that they are awarded or withheld points to myriad possible reasons that are not conveyed by clicking or not clicking. But with The 39 Steps, I came to recognize that there is a particular aspect of Hitchcock that I certainly admire but have no passionate feelings about. And this may pertain to Hitchcock's own apparent passion, or lack of it.
As an early film, The 39 Steps is quite fascinating, since it displays certain aspects of Hitchcock's creative development during the silent era. There are formal techniques, such as the echoing, superimposed image of the dead Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) floating above the diegesis, or the decisive, almost sculptural way that Hitchcock organizes the frame. Most of the story is told through spatial and architectural articulation. From the careful arrangement of objects in the space of Hannay's (Robert Donat) spartan apartment, through the almost Soviet depiction of the Flying Scotsman crossing the Forth Bridge, The 39 Steps works overtime to communicate in purely visual terms. The use of sound and dialogue is also carefully structured, but one still gets the sense that sound is an augmentation here, something of a bonus.
This is what makes The 39 Steps most interesting and appealing to me. However, I find Hitchcock's genre mechanics rather off-putting. This is, first and foremost, a work of entertainment, and on that level it functions quite well, sometimes splendidly. And while I don't want to sound like one of those cretins on the Internet who delights in identifying narrative gaps and continuity errors, I find myself bristling at some of Hitchcock's decisions. The way The 39 Steps tears through women for Hannay to play against -- Annabella, then the farmer's wife (Peggy Ashcroft), and eventually Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), demonstrates a kind of formal ruthlessness on Hitchcock's part. But it also reminds us that we are not ever really supposed to care about any of these characters. The 39 Steps is all clockwork, no orange.
Mike D'Angelo observed a rather substantial plot hole. Why did the 39 Steps henchmen break into Hannay's apartment and kill Annabella, but spare him? Similarly, I found the ending rather odd. Are we to interpret that Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson) is an unthinking human computer? Why would he publicly reveal the 39 Steps, when he knew full well it would cost him his life? In a way, this conclusion, intentionally or not, exemplifies The 39 Steps' attitude toward human behavior. People do things in order to keep the narrative machine going, and there's little sense that they have any say in it.
Comments
This take very much resonates with me (as does the hesitancy over whether to "like" something or not on letterboxd). With only several exceptions I tend to find Hitch's films compelling while watching but then they promptly slide out of my memory--and affection.
Michael Sicinski
In fact, I am the Man Who Knew Too Little. I got mixed up, misremembering 39S as the auto-remake, when it fact it was Man Who Knew Too Much (1934/1956). Sorry guys.
Michael Sicinski
Ah, my bad. I was mistaken. Thanks for the heads up.
Victor Morton
While I don't want to sound like one of those cretins on the Internet who delights in identifying narrative gaps and continuity errors ... what do you mean by “Hitchcock felt compelled to remake this film”? There was indeed, in the strict sense, a remake of THE 39 STEPS, but Hitchcock didn’t make it. However, he did pretty obviously do a “remake,” in the looser sense, at least twice, with SABOTEUR and NORTH BY NORTHWEST.
