'The Thirty-Nine Steps' shows all the hallmarks of embryonic, vintage Hitchcock; the bickering romance, the dark humor, the paranoid sense of persecution, the chase, and the mysterious, but really quite irrelevant, McGuffin, fuelling it all.
The story, though pretty slim, is carried along at a brisk pace. The sequence on the train is composed with a very modern sense of editing and composition, which really reveals Hitchcock's revolutionary understanding of the dynamics of movie-making. Werndorff brings an original German Expressionist eye to the production design and several scenes are truly striking, particularly on the fog bound Scottish moorland. Though John Laurie almost steals the whole show (as usual), Donat and Carroll have great chemistry, with the kind of sexy and sharply written dialogue that for some reason, became extinct around 1951. The biggest fault of the movie is that they only actually spend about 20 minutes of screen time together.
Though 'The Lady Vanishes' is, in my mind, the best from Hitchcock's 'British Period', 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' is a great example of the director's emerging style and a thoroughly entertaining adventure romp in its own right.
The story, though pretty slim, is carried along at a brisk pace. The sequence on the train is composed with a very modern sense of editing and composition, which really reveals Hitchcock's revolutionary understanding of the dynamics of movie-making. Werndorff brings an original German Expressionist eye to the production design and several scenes are truly striking, particularly on the fog bound Scottish moorland. Though John Laurie almost steals the whole show (as usual), Donat and Carroll have great chemistry, with the kind of sexy and sharply written dialogue that for some reason, became extinct around 1951. The biggest fault of the movie is that they only actually spend about 20 minutes of screen time together.
Though 'The Lady Vanishes' is, in my mind, the best from Hitchcock's 'British Period', 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' is a great example of the director's emerging style and a thoroughly entertaining adventure romp in its own right.