The 39 Steps: A Review Of Alfred Hitchcock's Film

The 39 Steps was my first Hitchcock film. I found it very engaging and intriguing. I liked how the readings pointed out that so often people did not believe Richard, but when he tells them lies they end up believing him. It actually reminded me of a character from another movie, Ladyhawke. In that movie the main character also didn’t having people believe him when he told the truth, so he always lied. In a lot of cases I think the reason why people didn’t believe Richard when he told the truth was because the lies seemed easier to believe. It’s a lot like that old Mark Twain quote “Truth is stranger than fiction.”
At the end of the film I found myself wondering what happened to the crofter's wife, Margaret. It seemed like she was one of the
Who is she really working for? Was she really planning to meet Professor Jordan in Alt-na-Shellach, or was there someone else? If there was someone else, who was it?
I think part of the reason for the unanswered questions on some of these characters is because Hitchcock does a very good job of not letting us know more than the main character knows. We follow his journey, without any details about what’s happening with everyone else. This is really only broken in regards to the women in his life, such as Pamela and Margaret.
The reading tells us that the police men in Hitchcock films are notoriously incompetent, and it was interesting to observe this in 39 Steps. However, I feel this is a common trend in a lot of films, not just Hitchcock’s. After all, the hero wouldn’t be able to be heroic if the police could figure everything out on their own.
Overall, I found the film to be a fun and enjoyable introduction to Alfred Hitchcock’s films. The characters were engaging, the dialogue was fun, and the story was interesting. All the pieces of a good film came together - acting, writing, and directing – with the end result being a classic