Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 219: Tue Aug 7

The 39 Steps (Hitchcock, 1935): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm
This film, screening as part of the BFI's Hitchcock season, is also screening on 24 & 25 August.

The 39 Steps is my favourite Hitchock fim. I wrote about the movie here for the Guardian.


Chicago Reader review: 'As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work. Robert Donat is the dapper young man who stumbles across a spy ring; Madeleine Carroll is the cool, luminous blond with whom he shares a pair of handcuffs. The ideas established in this 1935 feature lead in two different directions in Hitchcock's later work—toward the interpersonal themes of the “couple” films (Marnie, Frenzy, The Paradine Case) and the metaphysical adventures of the chase pictures (North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much)' Dave Kehr 

Here is an extract. Madeleine Carroll taking off her damp stockings.

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