Episode
14
Criterion Spine #0
The 39 Steps
Alfred Hitchcock, 1935 · with Sid Gottlieb
“See how far the truth gets you.”
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Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), an ordinary Canadian visiting London, finds himself accused of a murder he didn't commit after a mysterious woman is killed in his apartment. Fleeing across the Scottish Highlands to clear his name, he becomes handcuffed — literally — to Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), a woman who has every reason not to believe a word he says. Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 thriller moves at a breathless pace, blending comedy, romance, and suspense into a template he'd return to again and again: an innocent man on the run, a woman he must win over, and a plot device — what Hitchcock would later call the "MacGuffin" — that matters far less than the human drama surrounding it. Adapted loosely from John Buchan's novel, The 39 Steps is the film where Hitchcock's sensibility fully arrived.
Sid Gottlieb has taught at Sacred Heart University since 1976 and co-edits The Hitchcock Annual. He has spent decades inside Hitchcock's own words through books like Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Framing Hitchcock, and Hitchcock: Interviews, with writing that extends to Welles, Capra, and beyond.
Spoiler-free context and starting points.