My favourite film: The 39 Steps

In our writers' favourite film series, Saptarshi Ray gets caught up in Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 web of intrigue

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The 39 Steps was my first Hitchcock film. I saw it when I was about 13, with a movie-buff uncle on a battered old black-and-white TV set, on a trip to India. Sitting in the clammy heat and darkness that night, praying there wouldn't be a power cut as we were transported from West Bengal to the Scottish moors, it was the first time I grasped the full extent of cinema's escapist power.

It also inspired my appreciation of Hitchcock as a master film-maker – an artisan and sculptor, with a healthy dose of rogue, rolled into one; a man who crafted stories that blended technical ingenuity with aesthetic beauty without you even realising it.

The plot of The 39 Steps – adapted from a mediocre novel by John Buchan and remade at least three more times – centres on Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a man who finds himself in a vortex of espionage and cigarettes, without understanding exactly how or why. The theme of the innocent man trapped in a web of intrigue was one Hitchcock would visit so regularly that the term "Hitchcockian hero" became shorthand for such characters, and The 39 Steps serves as its standard bearer.

During a music hall brawl, Hannay agrees when a mysterious woman asks if she can go home with him. Thereafter his life is never the same: he becomes a murder suspect and the only way to clear his name is to expose an organisation called the 39 Steps. He ends up handcuffed to a gorgeous blonde (who else? Hitchcock had a fondness for them, you know.) It is she, played by Madeleine Carroll, whom he must persuade he is innocent.

If you feel you've seen a similar film, you probably have: North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Saboteur and many more – and those are just the ones by Hitchcock. But The 39 Steps stands out because it was one of the Master of Suspense's first "talkies"; like any artist trying something new, his strokes are at once nervous and brash, and his motifs wonderfully contradictory. The film is quintessentially British yet the hero Canadian; it was made at a time when film-makers were experimenting with sound, yet Hitchcock uses silence to heighten the tension. In one scene, a crofter mistakenly believes his wife and Hannay are plotting a late-night tryst after seeing them converse and not hearing what they say. This was an era of rampant male chauvinism, yet pretty much all the women are strong and smart. It's a taut thriller, yet revels in moments of slapstick and comedy. And perhaps best of all, in a sign of things to come from the master, it is a whodunnit throughout which we basically know who did it, but not why.

I have been a Hitchcock fan ever since that fateful night, as much for his dramatic sweeps and technical audacity as for his twinkling sense of mischief and mastery of the macabre. My favourite scene sees the narrative crash headlong into farce as the fugitive Hannay is mistaken for the guest of honour at a political meeting and forced into giving a speech. He raises the rabble in such commanding fashion, with a speech so vapid and yet so inspiring ("I want a world where no nation plots against nation, no neighbour plots against neighbour, where everybody gets a fair chance and a square deal … that's the kind of world I want. Is that the kind of world you want?")

Then, of course, there's the chemistry between the leads. According to Donat's biography, Hitchcock "accidentally" lost the key after handcuffing him to Carroll at their first rehearsal. After a few hours, during which the director was said to have become mawkishly obsessed with how the pair would deal with bathroom visits, Hitchcock "found" the key. As a result, the leads became more relaxed in each other's presence. Their heat may not quite match Bogie and Bacall, but they're a fine pair on-screen, and so engaging that they are doomed to fall in love.

Watching The 39 Steps is a bit like entering a vintage jewel-encrusted lift once built for a maharajah: what will you admire first? The ornate ivory buttons, the solid gold doors edged with marble, the engineering that makes it capable of such speed – or will you simply enjoy the ride? For every breathless plot twist there's a camera shot or angle to appreciate. Just like the Forth Bridge and its dramatic Scottish surroundings, this film proves ingenuity and beauty can make easy bedfellows – whether handcuffed together or not.

• This article was amended on Friday 25 November. A picture mistakenly included in this piece was a still of actor Robert Donat in 1938's The Citadel, not The 39 Steps as we implied. The picture has been removed.

Contributor

Saptarshi Ray

The GuardianTramp

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