When one thinks of Alfred Hitchcock, they tend to focus on the splashy Technicolor thrillers he churned out during his 1950s Hollywood heyday. But before that, the Master of Suspense honed his talents in his native England, where he sharpened the technical precision and thematic obsessions that would define him. Perhaps no other title from this period better showcases the filmmaker he would become better than The 39 Steps, his 1935 barn burner filled with action, espionage, and mystery. Within its brisk 86-minute runtime lie the bones of the many tropes that would soon become collectively coined as Hitchcockian: the wrongfully accused man, the icy-blonde love interest, and, of course, the MacGuffin.
