The story of 'The thirty-nine steps' is set very precisely during a few weeks in May and June , before the outbreak of the First World War. It is essentially a thriller with an element of political subterfuge.
He accidentally gets caught up in a situation that exposes the vulnerability of the British state to plots against its security. These themes, expertly woven together by Buchan, highlighted the talents which his experience in the Propaganda Department of the War Office suitably prepared him for. Buchan holds up Richard Hannay as an example to his readers of an ordinary man who puts his country's interests before his own safety.
Not surprisingly, the story was a hit with the soldiers stuck in the trenches of the First World War. Buchan went on to write better novels — with and without Hannay — but the original tale of a man pursued by dark forces remains his most famous and has been hugely influential. It was a paradox that in his professional and public life, Buchan was a stickler for the rules of the political system and Government, which in his novels he so often seems to parody. The Lady Vanishes Alfred Hitchcock.
Three Reasons: The 39 Steps. Sneak Peeks — Jun 6, By David Cairns Essays — Jun 25, This DVD provides a newly restored transfer, new critical audio commentary on the film, and supplemen…. By Marian Keane Essays — Nov 24, And not only for the sheer, breathless excitement of the story; the seamless construction; the chilling, beautifully realized atmospher….
By Michael Wilmington Essays — Dec 10, Instead, they turned their attention to Buchan's first Hannay novel, "The Thirty-Nine Steps" published in , which Hitchcock regarded as "a smaller subject". Several sources claim that production was held up my C. Woolf who felt the film was "too highbrow" and tried to push Hitchcock and Bennett into developing a musical based on Floradora.
When Balcon, who was away in America at the time, was contacted by Hitchcock, he immediately overruled Woolf. Although Hitchcock had fond memories of first reading the book as a teenager, he soon realised they would need to take liberties with Buchan's novel:. Hitchcock and Bennett began working on the screenplay in November and an initial incomplete draft was soon shown to Balcon who immediately saw it as "an obvious international proposition" and he encouraged Hitchcock to "avoid all phrases which are purely of importance to a British audience" in order to maximise the film's potential in America.
With Balcon wanting to put the film into production in early , Bennett accompanied the Hitchcocks on their annual Christmas vacation to St. Moritz where they all continued working on the script. By the time film entered production, two elements of the script remained incomplete and were worked out during filming:. Playwright Ian Hay provided much of the final dialogue.
Michael Balcon was keen to break Gaumont-British films into the lucrative American market and the casting of actor Robert Donat as Richard Hannay was a calculated one — the actor's recent films for London Film Productions had been successfully marketed in the United States and Donat had spent 3 months in Hollywood starring in The Count of Monte Cristo , produced by Edward Small.
By December , Variety reported that Warner Bros. The initially minor role of Pamela — a character that didn't exist in Buchan's novel — was initially given to British actress Jane Baxter. Appearing in only her second film, well-known stage actress Peggy Ashcroft would deliver a memorable and moving performance as the crofter's wife, trapped in an abusive relationship.
By the end of January, the principal cast were announced to the British press. As well as Hitchcock's use of storyboards to pre-plan the camera shots, Austrian art director Oscar Friedrich Werndorff produced a large number of drawings to inform the look-and-feel of the set design. A comparison of Werndorff's drawings shows that most of them closely match the final set designs.
Although principally a studio-based production, the film included establishing footage of a number of locations in London — including Portland Place , Park Crescent , King's Cross Station and Piccadilly Circus — along with second unit footage of the Forth Bridge and wide shots of the chase across the rugged Scottish terrain around Glen Coe which used a double standing in for Donat. Filming began at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherd's Bush on January 11th, , and the initial scenes in the bawdy music hall were filmed first.
On the first day that Donat and Carroll were on set together, Hitchcock famously put the pair in handcuffs, supposedly to rehearse a scene, and then claimed he'd lost the key. Whilst this incident is often reported as an example of Hitchcock's sadistic practical jokes, Donat had a very different take on the event:.
As scholar Mark Glancy has noted, Hitchcock's on-set behaviour — from smashing teacups and studio lamp bulbs to calling the film's stars "Mr. Doughnut" and "The Birmingham Tart" — was designed to exert his authority and pre-eminence. It seems likely Hitchcock had witnessed German directors at Ufa and Emelka employing similar techniques in the s to prick actor's egos, and to ensure cast and crew didn't become too complacent.
A portion of the Forth Bridge was reconstructed on a section of railway line at Stapleford in Hertfordshire for the shot where Hannay is seen hiding behind behind a bridge pillar.
Whilst Lime Grove lacked a backlot, the studios at Welwyn had a standing set of a generic London street which Hitchcock was able to repurpose as the unnamed Scottish town seen in the scenes where Hannay hides in the Salvation Army parade.
The 39 Steps was premiered on June 6th at the New Gallery Theatre following a formal evening dinner event held at the Piccadilly Hotel.
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