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The 39
Steps (1935, UK)
In master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock's British classic
- a tale of espionage, murder, and an innocent man on the run - including
the masterminding theft of British military secrets by a group of
assassins (presumably Nazi Germans):
- the opening scene of Canadian Richard Hannay's (Robert
Donat) attendance at a Music Hall vaudeville-show performance,
at the London Palladium featuring Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson), a
remarkable memory expert, and the pandemonium that broke out after
gunshots were fired
- the sequence of Hannay's meeting up with counterspy
female mercenary agent Annabella Smith (Lucie Mannheim) in his own
rented, furnished bachelor flat at Portland Place, who asked him: "Have
you ever heard of the 39 Steps?" - he was confused:
"No, what's that, a pub?"
- the fatal stabbing in the back of Annabella with a
kitchen knife in the middle of the night, when she staggered into
the living room (where Hannay was sleeping) and delivered her last
words to him - a warning: "Clear out, Hannay! They'll get you
next"
- the famous scene transition blending the scream of
the housekeeper discovering the corpse to the shrieking whistle of
a train
- the sequence of wrongly-accused, hero-on-the-run Hannay
in Scotland during a widespread manhunt, hiding out for a night's
lodging and shelter in a crofter's cottage with a couple: stern,
miserly, middle-aged, suspicious Calvinistic crofter-sheepherder
John (John Laurie) and his young and sheltered, unhappily-married
wife Margaret (Peggy Ashcroft) (first wrongly assumed to be the crofter's
daughter); and Hannay's conversation with her about how she missed
and longed for the
"fine shops" and the Saturday night "cinema palaces
and their crowds" of city life - and her expression of faith in
Hannay's innocence while knowing about his incrimination in newspaper
headlines: "PORTLAND PLACE MURDER TRACED TO SCOTLAND", while
her possessive and treacherous husband betrayed his location to authorities
- the scene of Margaret warning Hannay to flee in the
middle of the night when the police pulled up in a vehicle, while
her jealous husband wrongly accused her of infidelity: "I might
have known. Making love behind my back. (To his wife) Get out!";
Hannay explained otherwise: "Look here, you're all wrong about
this. She was only trying to help me"; as he fled covered in
the crofter's overcoat, Hannay worried that she would be ill-treated
afterwards, but she reassured him: "He'll pray at me, but no
more"; however, the camera lingered on Margaret's face as she
longingly watched Hannay disappear into the night - it was a desolate
look that conveyed the loss of any possibility of freedom and dreams
(off-camera, she was soon to be fearfully condemned, cursed and savagely
beaten due to John's puritanical, oppressive attitudes in their loveless,
forced marriage)
- the master spy Professor Jordan's (Godfrey Tearle)
display of his tell-tale disfiguration (that Annabella had warned
about: "He has a dozen names, and he can look like a hundred
people, but one thing he cannot disguise - this: part of his little
finger is missing - so if ever you should meet a man with no top
joint there, be very careful, my friend") - a missing portion
of his little finger on his right hand (before he pulled out a gun
and shot Hannay point-blank) - followed by a superb fadeout - and
the discovery that the crofter's thick hymnbook in the breast pocket
of his overcoat had saved Hannay's life
- Hannay's memorable political speech after he found
himself - at an opportune moment - at the lecturn on stage at a political
rally: "...may I say, from the bottom of my heart and with the
utmost sincerity, how delighted and relieved I am to find myself
in your presence at this moment... Delighted, because of your friendly
reception, and relieved, because as long as I stand on this platform,
I'm delivered from the moment (he caught himself from saying "of
truth") - from the cares and anxieties which must always be
the lot of a man in my position"; then he said: "And I
know what it is to feel lonely and helpless and to have the whole
world against me, and those are things that no man or woman ought
to feel"
- an apt description of his imperiled situation
- when apprehended by the spies, the two major characters
- Hannay and Pamela (Madeleine Carroll) - were forced to be handcuffed
or shackled together (Hannay: "There are twenty million women
in this island and I've got to be chained to you") - followed
by many uncomfortable situations they found themselves in
- the final sequences, back at London's Palladium, and
the questioning of Mr. Memory on stage, when Hannay suddenly realized
that the memory expert held the Hitchcockian "MacGuffin" in
his head - he had memorized the classified secret information
regarding mechanical plans for the design of an airplane engine;
Hannay asked a self-incriminating question of Mr. Memory, as the
camera angle titled: "What are the Thirty-Nine Steps? Come on!
Answer up! What are the Thirty-Nine Steps?"
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The Death of Mr. Memory - Shot by Jordan
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- the subsequent assassination attempt by Jordan (hiding
in an opera box) of Mr. Memory as he divulged the crucial identity
of the 39 Steps: "The Thirty-Nine Steps is an organization
of spies, collecting information on behalf of the foreign office
of..." - he was interrupted when he was shot, fell to the
stage and grabbed his side from the lethal wound
- and finally, Memory's confession
about the information as he was dying - a proud recitation of the
complicated scientific mathematical formulas of the secret documents
that he had painstakingly memorized about how to make silent aircraft
engines, followed by his statement of relief: ("Thank you, sir.
Thank you. I'm glad it's off my mind. Glad!") - while chorus
girls kicked on stage behind him and Hannay (with the handcuffs only
on him) voluntarily joined hands with Pamela in the foreground -
in the closing image
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Mr. Memory's Performance
Annabella: "Have you ever heard of the 39 Steps?"
With the Crofter Couple and Wife Margaret
Professor Jordan With a Missing Little Finger
Saved By the Crofter's Hymnbook in His Pocket
Memorable Political Speech
Handcuffed to Pamela
Joining Hands Voluntarily
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