Now considering that there was one extreme difference in the film, I will touch on this, why this change may have been made, and why it is in line with many of the other movies that Hitchcock directed.
This difference that I am talking about, undoubtedly, is the addition of the love interest for Hannay. In the book, this aspect of the story was not there, but Hitchcock saw fit that such an element should be added to the film.
The love element is a constant in all of Hitchcock films. Every single one of the stories we have viewed so far in class have been focused, almost every time, on a man and eventually a women that enters at some point as the man's love interest. The love story in movies do many things. In one way, using The 39 Steps as an example, you have a tale of deceit, spies, murder, secrets, and all sorts of fun that attract a male to the film. Hannay is put in a bad situation which spins the story into a world of running and fact finding that keeps the tempo fast and upbeat. The only thing that a man might want more of is some fighting and explosions. But that is not necessarily Hitchcock's style. The love story aspect of the film is a tool that many directors, and in one way or another Hitchcock is included, use to attract a wider audience. The love story is in fact a tool used to bring in a demographic possibly not attained by the murderous spy mysteries. This is the female demographic. The love story, even though it is atypical in Hitchcock films, is a constant. The dating of the film and the relationship of women in the culture were much different back then, and is not quite viewed in the same light today. If a movie came out today with the same love guidelines as in the Hitchcock films, I do not see it going to well for that director. But, given the time period, the way the love aspect is set up in the movie, had to be a tool for drawing the women into the films, as well as the men.
Moving on, I have some thoughts on the ever apparent love story in Hitchcock films. Beyond the fact that the love aspect is a way to generate a larger fanfare for the movie, Hitchcock's fascination with the love story is interesting as well. Not in all, but in a majority of the films he directed, Hitchcock has a couple where there was a strong male and a female who always seemed to be at the whim of the male. Another aspect that still confuses me, and again, maybe this is how we view such topics in our day, but the male always seems to be into the women extremely fast. It seems like within hours of meeting a women, and limited talking the man will inevitably tell the women he loves her. So strange to me. This could possibly be Hitchcock's interpretation of what he thought was a functional relationship for the time, or possibly even what he himself desired. In any case, the portrayal of the love story in his movies are always a little bit off to me, and I highly doubt the same portrayal in our day would not fly.
Within The 39 Steps, there is a particular scene of interest that we were asked to speak on. This is when Hannay finds himself at the home of a farmer, who has a beautiful wife. As they sit down to eat dinner, the wife and Hannay exchange a set of glances to each other that is noticed by the farmer. It actually is quite an entertaining scene. As the farmers bows is head to offer a prayer before the meal, he begins and his wife raises her head and opens her eyes to see a newspaper heading that states a murderer is on the loose and gathers that the man visiting them (Mr. Hannay) is the murderer they had been looking for. She looks at him in terror and he, while trying to to make a scene or any noise to interrupt the farmer, motions not to say anything and almost tries to imply by his emotions that he did not commit the crime he was being accused of. All the while, the farmers, while continuing his prayer, lifts his head and looks at the two, noticing the strange looks they are giving each other. The look on the farmer's face was though he thought they were looking at each other in interest of each other. After the prayer is concluded he gets up and leaves the room to "lock the barn door." this short sequence was quite well done. The pure use of emotions and glances to demonstrate thought and mood in the scene was brilliantly done, almost to the point it was funny to watch it was so well done.
Some of the things we talked about in class in reference to the film was some of the advancements in this movie in comparisons to many of the earlier Hitchcock films. some of the things we talked about were: how the tempo of this film was much quicker than in Backmail; it was overall fast paced and included a witty protagonist; the dialogue was much improved, as well as the equipment; and just a notice that the quality of the film has deteriorated over time. Some of the innovations in this films include, as mentioned above, an improved dialogue, there was less music used in the film, a very cool scene with a flashback of the slain women's face juxtaposed over the scene, and the improvement of the driving scene where the car drives out of the camera shot.
All in all, this film was pretty decent. Although the quality of the film was sub-par, it seemed to be a point that you can tell Hitchcock used as a jumping point. This was one of his bigger early films and really sets up some of the other well known films that are soon to come from him.
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