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Post by millar70 on Jun 30, 2021 19:50:27 GMT
So last weekend TCM did a whole weekend of Hitchcock films, and I taped a couple that I had never seen, one of which was The 39 Steps.
Wow!
So that's an unbelievable film, so good I decided to eat some happy mushrooms and watched it again. Works really well with psychedelics, btw.
Beautifully filmed, with plenty of Hitchcock surprises on the roller coaster ride. His addition of the female characters almost turns a testy spy thriller into a romantic comedy, yet Hitchcock doesn't let the tension totally go away, so you're on the edge of your seat all the way to the end.
And what an ending! The last five minutes are pure magic, and the final shot of the holding hands put a major lump in my throat.
In a word, brilliant.
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Post by mikef6 on Jun 30, 2021 19:57:41 GMT
It IS a great movie. Coupled with the first version of "The Man Who Knew Too Much," Hitchcock jumped to the head of the class among British Film Industry directors and got him his first international notices.
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Post by wmcclain on Jun 30, 2021 20:35:10 GMT
The 39 Steps (1935), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Richard Hannay, hero of several John Buchan adventures, picks up a nervous woman at the music hall and takes her back to his place. She tells of a spy ring and stolen military secrets. The next morning she's dead with a knife in her back (why is he still alive?) and Hannay is on the run, chased by the police while he chases spies in Scotland. It's a cat-and-mouse thriller until he's handcuffed to a young woman who doesn't believe his tale. We move into a different type of story then, a romantic comedy thriller where we care more about the couple than the spies. In a melancholy episode in the middle of the film we have a sad, lonely farmer's wife, the only person to believe Hannay and help him. This is young Peggy Ashcroft, last seen in A Passage to India (1984) 50 years later. It begins and ends in a theater, just like the movie-goer. The show is part of the mystery, and the mystery is our show. Robert Donat is twice an actor: once as Hannay who is acting while pursuing his story, and again in playing Hannay for us. We have several instances of switching between the story and acting within the story, as when Hannay puts on another music hall performance at a candidates forum, and at the inn where the handcuffed couple pretend to be runaway lovers before becoming them in fact. Hitchcock was often critical of his early films, but in the Truffaut interviews both men like this one. This is where the director says: "I'm not concerned with plausibility; that's the easiest part, so why bother? [...] A critic who talks to me about plausibility is a dull fellow." Many good thoughts about relations with critics and audiences and the dangers of virtuosity for its own sake. I don't remember much about the book. As usual, Hitchcock, a Buchan fan, picked out something that tickled him -- the double chase -- and wrote his own story around it. In the text the title refers to a physical location, and Hannay enjoys being on the run: he has a lively sense of adventure. In a later story he's a WW1 general. Available on Blu-ray from Criterion, at best a modest upgrade over their DVD. The film is not in as good a shape as The Lady Vanishes (1938). The commentary track has a film scholar analyzing composition and explaining why it's important. Also a bit of sexual politics. 
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Post by politicidal on Jun 30, 2021 22:24:13 GMT
One of his best films. 8/10.
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Post by millar70 on Jun 30, 2021 22:33:58 GMT
My man Orson Welles was quite critical of Hitchcock, especially the later American years, but he is on record saying that this film was incredible.
Welles and the Mercury Theater did a radio version of The 39 Steps a few years after this film, but kept their version much closer to the original novel without the female characters.
At the end of the broadcast, Welles came on and something like, if you wanted to see certain characters that weren't in our production, go ask Alfred Hitchcock.
Welles, of course, like Hitchcock, had no problem creating new characters for stories that he was turning into his films.
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Post by marianne48 on Jul 1, 2021 1:45:02 GMT
Being handcuffed to Robert Donat for an extended period of time is my idea of a fun date.
Hitchcock had hoped to use Donat in a few other films, but sadly, Donat's chronic health issues reportedly kept him unavailable.
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Post by petrolino on Jul 3, 2021 1:26:05 GMT
Nice movie.
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Post by louise on Jul 6, 2021 9:45:28 GMT
It is very entertaining, though not much of the original story is left. But very exciting. And the scene where he makes the speech at the political meeting is very funny. But I’ve always thought the explanation for what the ‘steps’ are is a bit thin, it would have been better if they’d been real steps.
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Post by Rufus-T on Jul 7, 2021 4:31:13 GMT
It gets better each new viewing. Nice to see the young Peggy Ashcroft in a brief scene.
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Post by Hurdy Gurdy Man on Jul 20, 2021 14:46:11 GMT
I am afraid I simply could not get into it. Part of it is because it did not thrill me enough and part of it is because I found Robert Donat's smugness to be intolerable.
I consider the colour remake with Kenneth More to be better, simply because I found More to be a lot more likeable than Donat.
The 70s version with Robert Powell and David Warner is also enjoyable. It is much closer to Buchan's novel, set just before the World War One and even the steps in the title refer to an actual staircase, not some memorized formula. It has got a nail-biting climax at the Big Ben.
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Post by vegalyra on Jul 20, 2021 16:28:22 GMT
If only Hitchcock had gotten around to adapting Greenmantle, Hannays second adventure. I love those stories. Buchan was a wonderful author. The 39 Steps is a great film.
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