The 39 Steppes

Next Hitchcockian masterpiece: The 39 Steps!

By a complete accident, random stranger man gets caught up with a lady spy, who is struck down. He then decides to complete her mission of stopping important documents being leaked and heads to Scotland, barely escaping the police as he does so. He continues to barely escape, before running straight into the bad guys, but escapes and avoids more police while getting back to London, there the last step is taken.

Two movies in, and I'm sensing a pattern: Random stranger gets caught up in spy plot. I don't remember that happening in Psycho, but clearly Norman Bates was in over his head and it was all Marion's fault. Anyway, this chap seems not quite on top of things as Roger was, and is more lucky than good. As you could probably tell from my summary, it should have been called The 39 Escapes!

Robert Donat plays well 'guy with moustache' and Madeleine Carroll is the 'lady who gets treated as an object' (apparently consent wasn't a thing back then). I can't say that I recognise any of the other names, but we'll see if any of them grow on me as these movies go on.

Odd question: are those train carriages typical English carriages? With the compartments and being able to walk down one side. I can recall them in several movies, but can't say I've ever seen any in person.

Anyway, at not even ninety minutes, this movies ducks in and out. It's not an astounding work, but another one I can check off.

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