The innocent man on the run scenario gets the full Hitchcock treatment in this fast-paces tale of espionage set in London and the Scottish Highlands.  Typical of Hitchcock at his best, the motives of the villains are a bit hazy, the hero keeps a quick wit and sense of humor about him even in the most perilous of circumstances, and perfectly-crafted bits of Hitchcockian humor shine throughout.

          Our hero, Canadian Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), living alone in a rented London flat, takes time off from… well, whatever the hell it is he's doing in London (it's never explained), to see a vaudeville show.  One of the featured performers that evening is Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson) who answers questions from the audience on whatever topic they chose.  Hannay has just managed to get his question answered when a commotion breaks out in the hall.  In the confusion, two gunshots are fired and the crowd makes a mad dash for the exit.  It is here that Hannay bumps into a dark-haired woman with a strong foreign accent (Lucie Mannheim) who abruptly asks if she might come home with him.

          Hannay looks the woman over.  "Well, It's your funeral," he returns casually.

          As they arrive at the flat, almost as an afterthought, Hannay wonders if he might get the woman's name.

          "Smith?" she replies, as though that name will do as well as the next.

          Once inside, Ms. "Smith" soon discloses that she is a foreign agent on the trail of a spy ring which is attempting to smuggle out of England secrets "vital to your air defense."  She asks for a map of Scotland and pinpoints the name of a town where she must go next "if anything is to be done."  She further describes the chief of the spy ring she's after as a man of many disguises who cannot disguise the fact that the tip of his little finger is missing.

          Hannay remains skeptical of this wild tale but agrees to let the woman hide out for the night after she points out two shadowy figures lurking on street below.  The woman, who we know now also as "Annabella", takes the bed, Hannay takes the couch.  Later that night, someone breaks into the flat, takes Hannay's kitchen knife and rams it into Annabella's back.

          "They'll get you next!" she warns Hannay with her dying breath.

          Rather than call the Police and have them mistake a small piece of an unbelievable espionage puzzle as a simple sex murder --that is, if the killers don't dispose of him first-- Hannay decides his only hope is to flee to Scotland where he can search out the late Anabella's contact.

          That's the setup.  What follows is a series of adventures that lead Hannay to a leap off a towering train trestle, an encounter with a God-fearing (and greedy and double-crossing) farmer (John Laurie), a brush with death at the hands of the pinky-fingerless man (Godfrey Tearle), and, most famously perhaps, the involuntary attachment by handcuff to a disagreeable blonde ("Pamela", played by Madeleine Carroll).  Hannay eventually wins Pamela over to belief in his innocence and together they unmask the spies, clear Hannay of murder, save jolly, old England and, we are left to assume, find LOVE.

          The 39 Steps is fast, light on its feet and thoroughly entertaining throughout.  It has been called the North By Northwest  of Hitchcock's early British years.  Remarkably, the film remains not the least bit dated and actually seems fresher today than Saboteur, a near-remake made by Hitchcock seven years later in 1942.