The 39 Steps

Starring: Madeleine Carroll, Peggy Ashcroft Director: Alfred Hitchcock Dvd Release: 24th July, 1999 Number Of Discs: 1 Format: Black & White, NTSC, Region 0 Encoding Subtitled In: Chinese, Japanese, Spanish

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The Thirty-Nine Steps is an adventure novel by John Buchan, first published in 1915. It is one of a number of Buchans works to feature Richard Hannay, an all-action hero with a stiff upper lip & a miraculous habit of getting himself out of sticky situations. There have been three major film versions of the book. All three departed substantially from the text & introduced a love interest which was not in the original novel. For the films the title is often abbreviated to The 39 Steps, but the full title is more commonly used for the book. The 1935 black & white version was directed by Alfred Hitchcock & starred Robert Donat as Hannay & Madeleine Carroll as the woman he meets on the train. It is still regarded as the superior version. In addition to The 39 Steps, Hitchcock directed a number of movies based upon the idea of an innocent man on the run, including Sabotage & North by Northwest. Scholars of his movies regard this film as one of his best variations upon this particular theme. In 2004 the magazine Total Film named it the 21st greatest British movie of all time.

Hitchcock can be a magician & predict in 1936 the date when the war with Germany will start : 1939. This spy movie is simple in plot but well dealt with on the screen to look fast & very active. The events are following one another with no pause. A man gets entangled with the death of some free-lance spy, tries to fulfill what he knows of her « mission » & at the same time to escape the police & the spies. The film shows the English are quite ready for a difficult period because they are on the alert all the time & they are ready to report anything that looks strange. Some of course are more complex. The Scot that could have helped the escapee, sells him for a handful of pounds. Not very clear. Another Scot is in fact the head of the spying network. Another, a publicans wife, is helpful because she sees love where there is only fear & forced loyalty. But the woman in that case, who is English, has her eyes wide open & her ears fully active & she finds out the truth & changes sides. And she & the escapee will finally expose & capture the spy & at the same time prove the mans innocence. Hitchcock is telling Europe & the world that there is a serious danger coming up, a war in fact, & that everyone is supposed to be ready to sacrifice even their freedom & peaceful lives to fight back. It is not innocent if the film starts with a music-hall show & ends with another music-hall show in which the main attraction of the first one is appearing again : we are living in a world of fanciful distractions & entertainments that may make us blind to real dangers : wake up Britons, wake up fast. As for the film, it is very interesting that it has not been remasterized & gives us the feel of what it was in those 1930s. That gives a lot more value to the DVD than an artificially colorized version would have. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Madeleine Carroll was a British actress. Born in West Bromwich, England, she became an American citizen in 1943. During World War II, Madeleine Carroll was an American Red Cross volunteer worker. She served in the 61st Field Hospital, Bari, Italy in 1944, where many wounded American airmen flying out of air bases around Foggia were hospitalized. Madeline Carroll was a graduate of The University of Birmingham, England. She appeared in two Alfred Hitchcock movies The 39 Steps & Secret Agent. She also appeared in The Prisoner of Zenda, One Night in Lisbon & My Favorite Blonde. Posters Of Madeleine Carroll

Editors Choice: The 39 Steps, The Secret Agent, Alfred Hitchcock, The Lady Vanishes, View DVDology

Peggy Ashcroft was a British actress. Born Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft in Croydon, a suburb of London, Ashcroft attended the Central School of Speech & Drama. A prolific stage actress from a young age, Peggy Ashcrofts film & television appearances were rare but memorable. One of her earliest film roles was the minor part of the crofters wife in the Robert Donat version of The Thirty-Nine Steps. Possibly her best known celluloid role was that of Mrs Moore in A Passage to India - a role which won her an Academy Award in 1984 for Best Actress In A Supporting Role. On television, 1984 saw Peggy Ashcroft appear in the role of Barbie Batchelor in the internationally acclaimed mini-series Jewel in the Crown, for which she won a BAFTA Best Television Actress award. Peggy Ashcroft was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1951 & made a Dame Commander in 1956. She died in London on June 14th, 1991 of a stroke.

Editors Choice: Caught On A Train, The 39 Steps, When The Wind Blows, View DVDology

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE was a British -born film director & producer, closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. He began directing in the United Kingdom before working mostly in the United States from 1939 onwards, taking out dual citizenship in 1956. He directed more than fifty feature films in a career spanning six decades, from the silent film era, through the invention of talkies, to the color era. Hitchcock remains one of the best known & most popular directors of all time, famous for his expert & often unrivaled control of pace & suspense throughout his movies. Hitchcocks films draw heavily on both fear & fantasy & are known for their droll humour. They often portray innocent people caught up in circumstances beyond their control or understanding. This often involves a transference of guilt in which the innocent characters failings are transferred to another character & magnified. Another common theme is the exploration of the compatibility of men & women; Hitchcocks films often take a cynical view of traditional romantic relationships. Posters Of Alfred Hitchcock

Editors Choice: Family Plot, Frenzy, Topaz, Marnie, Torn Curtain, The Birds, North By Northwest, Vertigo, View DVDology

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