The 39 Steps (UK)

(84 min; 1935; b/w; English)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock

With Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft

One of Alfred Hitchcock's finest British film, which was originally released in 1935. Freely adapted from the John Buchan novel, The 39 Steps is a picaresque thriller in which an innocent man Hannay (Robert Donat) becomes caught up in an international spying conspiracy and is pursued by both foreign agents and the police. A significant precursor to the same film-maker's North by Northwest, it remains a supremely entertaining and accomplished work in its own right.