The 39 Steps (1935) on Netflix
Approved19351h 26mCrimeMysteryThriller
Canadian Richard Hannay takes Annabella Smith home from a London music hall after gunshots scatter the crowd. She says she is a spy and that a ring is after British military secrets.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.6/1066,894 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
At a London music hall, Richard Hannay watches a performer called Mr. Memory answer trivia from the audience. Gunshots panic the crowd, and a woman, Annabella Smith, talks Hannay into taking her to his flat. She says she is a spy who fired the shots to throw off assassins, that a ring is plotting to steal British military secrets, and that the man leading it is missing a joint from one little finger. She speaks of the 39 Steps without explaining the phrase. That night she bursts into his bedroom with a knife in her back, warning him to flee, and he finds a map of Scotland in her hand with a small village circled. He slips out disguised as a milkman and takes a train north, and a fellow passenger, Pamela, gives him away to the police.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Pat Hagateas M.C. Who Introduces Mr. Memory (uncredited)
- Carleton Hobbsas Fake Police Officer (uncredited)
- Quinton McPhersonas Clergyman on the Flying Scotsman (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The 39 Steps (1935)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Hitchcock used the song "Tinkle, Tinkle, Tinkle", from the film Evergreen starring Jessie Matthews, to underscore Mr. Memory's dying words and the fade-out music, even though he had worked with Matthews on Waltzes from Vienna and reportedly did not like her much.- Hitchcock had heard that Scottish industrialist and aircraft pioneer James Weir commuted to work every day in an autogyro, and he worked the aircraft into the film.
- The character of Mr. Memory was based on a real entertainer called Datas, and the music hall scenes in which he appears are absent from John Buchan's novel.
- The film established Madeleine Carroll as the template for Hitchcock's succession of ice-cold and elegant leading ladies, the so-called "Hitchcock blondes".
- A comedy stage version of The 39 Steps is a parody with four actors playing all the parts; it was written in 1995 by Simon Corble and Nobby Dimon, and a 2005 rewrite by Patrick Barlow played in the West End and on Broadway.
