The 39 Steps
[Warning: mild spoilers]
Yes, I watched a few 30s films this year. It was for school - unfortunately, that's probably the only thing that will ever make me watch some of these old classics. It's not that their badly made, but their very typical of interwar attitudes and British films, like the ones I watched, were shaped by the censorship of the age. On the bright side I feel more educated and cultured now that I've seen and analysed some of these films.
If you haven't heard of The 39 Steps (has anyone in my generation actually heard of it?) you might be interested to know that it's a Hitchcock film. Considering that his name was attached to this I wasn't expecting it to be so...bland. It's black and white - that's fine with me. It's your classic old romance film - I can deal with that. And it was a spy thriller - apparently. Yes, the storyline is a spy story. The soldier at the heart of the movie meets a mysterious woman at a music hall and when they escape from a shooting, they end up hiding out at his flat. He wakes up in the night to find that the woman has been murdered, after admitting a connection to a spy network. He follows the few hints he got from her, and ends up in a number of awkward situations in which he has to hide or pretend to be someone else so that he won't be found by the murderers and/or the police. And he ends up dragging a young woman into it all. The two get captured, run away, solve the case together, etc., etc. and of course they fall in love in the process.
The romance is very conservative, as was suitable for the time. The spy plot was not nearly as full of action or even suspense as one might expect. Even when he walks right into the enemy's hands, it's not as tense as it could be. After all, it is a Hitchcock film, so it could be so much more intense. This must be one of his most subdued movies. But I'm happy to say I've now seen a Hitchcock film.
Yes, I watched a few 30s films this year. It was for school - unfortunately, that's probably the only thing that will ever make me watch some of these old classics. It's not that their badly made, but their very typical of interwar attitudes and British films, like the ones I watched, were shaped by the censorship of the age. On the bright side I feel more educated and cultured now that I've seen and analysed some of these films.
If you haven't heard of The 39 Steps (has anyone in my generation actually heard of it?) you might be interested to know that it's a Hitchcock film. Considering that his name was attached to this I wasn't expecting it to be so...bland. It's black and white - that's fine with me. It's your classic old romance film - I can deal with that. And it was a spy thriller - apparently. Yes, the storyline is a spy story. The soldier at the heart of the movie meets a mysterious woman at a music hall and when they escape from a shooting, they end up hiding out at his flat. He wakes up in the night to find that the woman has been murdered, after admitting a connection to a spy network. He follows the few hints he got from her, and ends up in a number of awkward situations in which he has to hide or pretend to be someone else so that he won't be found by the murderers and/or the police. And he ends up dragging a young woman into it all. The two get captured, run away, solve the case together, etc., etc. and of course they fall in love in the process.
The romance is very conservative, as was suitable for the time. The spy plot was not nearly as full of action or even suspense as one might expect. Even when he walks right into the enemy's hands, it's not as tense as it could be. After all, it is a Hitchcock film, so it could be so much more intense. This must be one of his most subdued movies. But I'm happy to say I've now seen a Hitchcock film.
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