Good concept, poorly executed.

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Some good scenes. Effects typical of Hitchcock. Look out for Peggy Ashcroft and John Laurie (Dad's Army) as isolated Scottish couple. And was that Hitch himself as the theatre manager late in the movie? I could never warm to Donat though. That plummy voice that sounds like a croaky old man's has always irritated me. His popularity (including an Oscar) puzzles me. Almost no score (besides music hall) which is very effective but unusual for Hitchcock who so often used Bernard Herrman.

The 39 Steps took a while to hook me in and while it was far fetched at times, it turned out to be a decent film by the end. It didn't however do enough to make me want to re-watch it with renewed interest.A woman comes to Hannay for help. He agrees to hide her in his flat, but in the night she is murdered. How did they kill her in the flat? I'll assume they wanted to pin the murder on Hannay instead of killing him while they were already in the flat. Hannay goes to Scotland to find the man the murdered woman was going to see, but why is he going there? He has no information. Robert Donat was solid in the main role and Madeleine Carroll was terrific. Every scene that took place in the hotel was of a high quality, the film needed more of that magic throughout for me.

The 39 Steps of 1935 is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and stars such people as Robert Donat. This is one of those films considered to be not only the first signs of what Hitchcock would do in his later life, but also a film that is considered one of the very best British cinema has to offer. I though have to disagree, now don't get me by any stretch wrong here, I like this movie and I thought it was a good watch, but I just couldn't look at this and say it was great let alone really liking it.The story is exciting to be fair, man on the run, secret agents, a man who can memorise anything he see's or hears, it is absolutely crazy, but good. The plot plays our rather nicely, the timing is crazily off mostly because of its short running time and bits can seem rushed but all in all it is fairly exciting. I think it feels different than from other films of the day, it just seems much more like what you might see in films today, whether or not this has stood the test of time well that is for you to see, but it still feels refreshing-ish amongst the classic films.Robert Donat is our main man, trying to find out what these 39 steps are all about and also getting into a few pickles along the way. Donat is fine in the role and is really good here, not only is he calm and sophisticated but he also deals with the more serious moments well, and still in them can seem oddly charming. Madeleine Carroll is alright as Pamela but I did feel no one in the cast can quite match Donat and his performance. The characters are very complex I will say, Hitchcock makes sure he is not letting us the viewer know what the hell is going on until the every end, a good bit of suspense.And to the legend himself, Alfred Hitchcock whose skill is plain to see but also in my opinion overrated here. Now alright alright I'm not saying he's bad here, far from it but what I think is that people who watch this and see Hitch directed it instantly just say he directed it amazingly and he makes it good. Now although I don't fully disagree, I think it is actually those like Robert Donat who make this enjoyable and the whole thrilling plot is based on a book, Hitch does do a fine job, just not as good as he would do one day.If your looking at this film as either a Hitchcock fan or want to see his movies, I wouldn't say don't watch but don't also think this will be a masterpiece, it isn't all perfect. It is the length that didn't work for me and I even love short movies but it just feels too rushed like I previously said and you can't fully engage into the characters and their lives, we just don't get to know them well enough. I hear a lot of people compare this to the future Hitchcock film "North by Northwest" and that is true it is the man on the run kind of film, but what I will say is Hitchcock didn't copy this when he made that, this is very much his own style and one that is in line with British Cinema, not over in Hollywood.Overall I did (even if my review seems kind of oddly negative) enjoy this piece of cinema. I would recommend it to people mainly because I think some will really enjoy it, the excitement is there and the leading character is well acted out. I do however feel this is yet another old film overrated by us in the future, I mean not by a lot but just watch it properly and don't keep thinking about Hitchcock directing it.

It is often said that in old movies, even husbands and wives had to sleep in twin beds, and if both got on the same bed, at least one foot of one person had to be on the floor. Actually, if that was a rule, it was never written down, because it is nowhere to be found in the Production Code. And if it was a rule, it was not followed in this 1935 movie, because an unmarried man and woman get in a double bed and spend the night with all four feet on the bed. Part of the reason may have to do with the fact that the movie was made in the United Kingdom. Maybe their censorship rules were different, and America just went along. Also, it probably helped that the man and woman are antagonistic toward each other, sleeping together only because of handcuffs, so that there is not the slightest suggestion that they will have sex with each other.At the end of the movie, Hannay calls out to Mr. Memory during a performance, asking, "What are the 39 steps?" to which Mr. Memory begins to answer before he is shot, thereby leading to the capture of the man who shot him, who heads the organization of spies. We have to wonder why Mr. Memory started answering the question. We suspect there are two reasons: first, Mr. Memory was a somewhat unwilling participant in the spy ring (blackmail?); and second, his pride in being able to answer any factual question that was put to him made him unable to say, "I don't know."But that started me thinking. This is not the only Hitchcock movie in which a villain blurts out the truth even though in so doing he provides information that could or does lead to his undoing. In "Spellbound" (1945), Constance (Ingrid Bergman) gets her colleague, Dr. Murchison (Leo G. Carroll), to help her figure out the meaning of a dream, which he does, thereby incriminating himself. In "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotton), the Merry Widow murderer, vehemently expresses his disgust for foolish widows at the dinner table. In "Frenzy" (1972), Blaney (Jon Finch) is being hunted by the police for being the Necktie Strangler. He turns to Rusk (Barry Foster) for help, not realizing that Rusk himself is the Necktie Strangler. While they are talking, Rusk says with a hostile tone in his voice that some of these women who are raped and murdered get exactly what is coming to them, but Blaney is too distracted to notice.And come to think of it, I suppose we all have had moments when we blurted out something incriminating, when we could have simply kept our big mouths shut.