39 Steps

Key Movie Elements in:  39 Steps
Production:	My Movie Elements	My Comments and Observations
Producer	Michael Balcon and Ivor Montagu	Typical style for the 1930s
Director	Alfred Hitchcock	This is not one of Hitchcock’s better movies.
Screenplay	Charles Bennett	Adaptation of the book to movie was not done well.
Story	John Buchan	Well written. The thriller feeling of a good spy story. Very imaginative.
Production Designer	Unknown
Director of Photography	Bernard Knowles	The images are all up close and very flat. The filming is disjointed.
Music Director	Louis Levy	Music plays very little role in the movie and has a heavy circus feeling
Special Effects	N/A
Film Editor	D.N. Twist	Clean cutting and transition
Actor #1	Robert Donat	Somewhat Believable
Actor #2	Madeleine Carroll	Performance seems forced
Actor #3	Lucie Mannheim	Ok actress
Actor #4	Godfrey Tearle	Believable
Movie:
Character #1	Hannay	Polite Gentleman that is pulled into several situations that always seems to end bad.
Character #2	Pamela	Bit on the snobby side, does not believe
Character #3	Annabella Smith	Female Spy
Character #4	Professor Jordan	The “Bad” guy. Head of the “39 Steps”
Setting	Europe Early 20th Century	The black and white filming brings out the night time settings in all of the movie. The dark imagery stylizes the Spy movie feel. Starts in London and moves on to Scotland and then returns to London for the ending.
Story Line	Boy meets girl. Girl is a spy on the run. Tells her secret and gets killed. Boy is accused of the murder and tries to prove he is innocent. Boy meets new girl and is on the run. Proves he is innocent.	The adaptation of this story from the original book leaves a great deal out. The movie is dry and hard to watch.
Point of View	Third person	The outside view that gives one a good view of everything going on.  There are times that you see everything from the view of the main character, but main view is third person.
Theme	Spy Movie

Overview

Acting was well underdone. There was no sympathy for the characters. There was no flow between the characters due to the lack of familiarity between the actors. The book that this movie is based on was well written and very suspenseful. This adaptation leaves a great deal to be desired. The acting seemed forced and was far from entertaining.