2019 Blind Spot Series: The 39 Steps

Hey, everyone. It's Blind Spot time. If you're unfamiliar, The Blind Spot Challenge is hosted by Sofia at Returning Videotapes and is a challenge to us bloggers to watch one "significant" film per month that you haven't seen before. This one certainly fits the criteria.

Why did I pick it? Hitchcock. I've said this is previous posts, but Hitchcock is arguably the most iconic director of all-time. For people like me, that means I've got to watch a bunch of his work, particularly those deemed classics. This movie certainly fits the bill. It shows up on many 'greatest movies' lists, including one put out in 1999 by the British Film Institute. They ranked it as the fourth best British film of the twentieth century. Now that we're all intrigued, let's get to it.

Our hero Richard (Robert Donat) is at a show by the amazing "Mr. Memory" (Wylie Watson), a guy with instant and perfect recall of all manner of facts and figures. During this, shots ring out, and pandemonium ensues. Richard finds himself consoling Annabella (Lucie Mannheim) who then asks him to take her back to his apartment. That seems exceptionally forward of a woman in the 1930s, but unsurprisingly, Richard obliges. Once there, Annabella informs Richard that she fired the shots herself to cause a distraction because she is a spy and recognized assassins that were there to kill her. It seems they caught wind of her figuring out their plot to steal vital military information. She seems to think the perpetrators are a shadowy organization known only as The 39 Steps. Later that night, someone does indeed make their way into Richard's apartment and stabs Annabella to death. Before taking her last breath, however, she gives Richard the old flee warning. He takes off, but shortly discovers that he is the target of a nationwide manhunt as Annabella's murderer. Richard trying to clear his name while on the run ensues.

Hitchcock movies tend to live or die by how well they establish tone. I suppose that's true of most movies, but his seem especially susceptible to this. When he nails it, as in Vertigo and Psycho, the results are phenomenal. When he doesn't, as in The Lady Vanishes, we get a movie that has good elements but doesn't quite work. I The Lady Vanishes, the issue is the film constantly switches between silly comedy dead-serious mystery without the two styles ever meshing. The 39 Steps also incorporates humor and suspense, but balances the two far better. The jokes, often delivered with a wink and a nod, is excellently integrated into the unfolding drama of our hero desperately trying to stay alive. They serve as nice breaks in the tension as well as tiny bits of character development.

Strangely, considering the director, there are more problems with the suspense side of things. The tension is not always tense enough. We recognize the danger that our hero is in, but we never quite get the tingle in our spine given to us by other Hitchcock films. A huge chunk of the problem is that those scenes where our hero is meant to narrowly escape death don't feel, well, death-defying. Some of this can be attributed to the era in which this movie was made versus the era in which I'm watching it. The idea of what constitutes a harrowing cinematic chase has changed dramatically over the years. It even changed from one part of Hitch's career to another. On the other hand, the attitude of the main character during these moments is too flippant and nothing happens to jolt him out of it. The genius of Hitchcock is that the movie overcomes this to keep us intrigued. He expertly strings us along despite our misgivings. He develops in us a need to see how this plays out.

My having seen much later Hitchcock works against my perception of the film. Because of those experiences I was immediately struck by how many elements were recycled for North by Northwest. Both are chase movies involving a wrongly accused man and a nefarious organization. There are two major differences between this movie and that. In the later movie, the budget is clearly and significantly bigger. The director's vision is also bigger. Combining the two allows for more elaborate action sequences. The story here is more than solid. Having better action scenes, however, would enhance it. The other difference is the machismo of its leading man. In North by Northwest, Cary Grant represents the manly man American audiences have always valued. Of course, The 39 Steps is a British film from the 1930s. Fittingly, and maybe I'm stereotyping, Robert Donat is much more genteel. The combination of these disparities makes this a much less muscular movie. However, this came first, so it's probably unfair to judge it solely in comparison to film from two decades later with no real connection to it other than having the same director. On its own, The 39 Steps is a movie that takes a little time to grab you, but once it does it doesn't let go.