Review – The 39 Steps

I remember liking this one more the first time I saw it. This time around it struck me as an uneven blend of Hitchcockian spy thriller and Capra-esque screwball comedy. To be sure, it has some good moments. But it also has some weak points, such as Robert Donat’s odd failure to remove his overcoat at any point during the first half of the movie. The story is typical Hitchcock: an innocent man lets an attractive spy into his hotel room, and when she ends up stabbed to death he goes on the lam (which of course makes him look even more guilty than if he’d stayed put and tried to explain himself). After a series of miraculous-to-the-point-of-absurdity escapes from the police and killers pursuing him, he ends up handcuffed to crabby Madeline Carroll, leading to still more high jinks. This might have been a better movie if it hadn’t been such a creature of its own time. Mildly amusing