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by the misunderstandings which keep the couple apart, yet I know this is what hap-
pens in a good story.
The ensuing stage of cognitive appraisal is not just a matter of acquiring or re-
inforcing beliefs, but of obtaining a deeper understanding of human behaviour by
seeing how the accumulation of incidents fits together. Here the film reveals its shal-
lowness. The situations seem contrived to provide excitement. While they need not
be realistic, they have to engage me. The trouble is that they lack veracity, serving
the plot rather than arising from the characters feelings or concerns. Hannay comes
across as the epitome of the English upper-middle-class gentleman. His political
ideas might confound the stereotype; so does his Canadian nationality. He never
38 " Movie Greats
sounds Canadian. Pamela and Hannay are as much enigmas at the end of the film as
they were at the beginning. They have enacted an adventure for my entertainment
and nothing more. Holding hands in the final frames is not enough to convince me
that their relationship is credible or interesting.
Two uniquely cinematic moments stay in the memory because of their humanity.
One occurs when Hannay seeks shelter in an isolated croft. There is a palpable sexual
tension when he encounters the crofter s wife. As the crofter says grace before their
meal, his wife notices the newspaper on the table. The murder has made the head-
lines. She looks at Hannay and makes the connection. The crofter intercepts their
glances and jumps to the wrong conclusion. He makes an excuse to go outside, from
where he spies on the couple through the window. When a car is heard approach-
ing that night, his wife realizes that he has told the police and she urges Hannay to
escape. The crofter hears the couple talking and accuses them of having an affair. He
accepts a bribe from Hannay but betrays him in the hope of a reward. In a few short
scenes, the relationship between the jealous, hypocritical crofter and the wife who
yearns for her home city of Glasgow is revealed through acting and editing. These
are real people, whose marriage is laid bare for us.
The other memorable moment comes at the end of the film, when the professor
shoots Mr Memory. The variety show continues as the dying performer recites the
secret plans in the wings. The effect is in large part attributable to Wylie Watson s
performance as Mr Memory. Memorizing the formula is his greatest achievement;
he would not regard it as an act of treachery. The two leading characters are present,
but it is Mr Memory who grips the attention as we come to understand what is im-
portant to him.
Analysis
Hitchcock has spawned a vast literature, as well as having a daunting influence on
Western cinema.7 This is unusual for a British film-maker, particularly one who was
not taken seriously until his later years. Robert E. Capsis offers three explanations
for the change of heart: the work got better as Hitchcock matured, aesthetic stan-
dards changed (Hitchcock and the notion of the auteur were promoted by Chabrol
and Truffaut in the 1950s) and Hitchcock actively moulded his own image.8 The
risks of so much academic attention are twofold. First, as a film becomes an object
of study, its original purpose as entertainment becomes overlooked as researchers
squabble over the entrails. Secondly, it is easy to overintellectualize a director who
claimed less for his films than those who write about them. Few would deny that
The 39 Steps is an effective adventure story, but is it better than dozens of others
produced in the 1930s by such directors as Maurice Elvey and Bernard Vorhaus?
Raymond Durgnat s The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock was published in
1974, on the brink of Hitchcock s elevation to the ranks of great directors. Durgnat is
The 39 Steps (GB, 1935) " 39
one of several dissenting voices among the critical adulation.9 Though Hitchcock s
supporters have kept the upper hand, four of Durgnat s criticisms deserve consider-
ation: Hitchcock s social values, his portrayal of couples, the films superficiality and
his resort to cliché.
Though Hitchcock s world is less complacent than that of Ealing, All his films,
up to and including Jamaica Inn, renounce a kind of psycho-cultural relevance
which is not too much to expect from entertainment, let alone art. 10 When crofters
and London sophisticates slot unquestioningly into their class positions, it is hard to
disagree that Hitchcock s conflicts are played out in safe, noncontroversial terms.11
The upper-middle-class Professor Jordan remains a gentleman, even if he is a traitor
and murderer. The duplicitous crofter seems the greater villain as he lives up to his
working-class stereotype as a wife beater. Hitchcock s acquiescence to the status quo
is unlikely to be the consequence of censorship, given the sexual innuendo which he
slipped into the film. His world remained anachronistic and steeped in an imagined
past throughout his career, the London of Frenzy (GB, 1972) seeming little different
from that of The 39 Steps, when he was already showing a nostalgia for the music
hall of his childhood. Entertainment can have social relevance, as the comedies made
by George Formby and Gracie Fields in the 1930s demonstrate. By comparison with
The 39 Steps, the shadow of the Depression hangs over them. Whether such relevance
is always necessary is debatable, but Durgnat s judgement is justified if Hitchcock
is to be ranked with directors like Renoir and Ozu.
Fascism lies at the heart of The Lady Vanishes (GB, 1938), which is to be expected
given its date, but Hitchcock came to the project after the Launder and Gilliat script
was written. The enemy in The 39 Steps is less clearly defined. Mark Glancy writes
in his otherwise admirable study of the film: At nearly every stop on Hannay s
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zanotowane.pldoc.pisz.plpdf.pisz.plkwiatpolny.htw.pl
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Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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