The 39 Steps (1935)

Highly Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, John Buchan

Cinematographer: Bernard Knowles

Cast: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie

Funny, thrilling, and sexy, Hitchcock’s prototypical wrong-man thriller – in which a Canadian, living and working in London, is wrongly implicated in the murder of a secret agent, and sets off for Scotland in search of The 39 Steps (cryptically brought up by the now deceased spy), trailed by both the police and the real killers – proves to be perhaps the great director’s most purely entertaining film, filled with wonderful comic detail, gorgeously drawn characters, and delightful sub-plots. Iain.Stott

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