THE 39 STEPS (1935)

A few weeks ago I had a whole evening of watching vintage Hitchcock films on DVD. I viewed THE THIRTY NINE STEPS, THE LADY VANISHES and SABOTAGE. The films - particularly the first two - hold up very well although to be fair virtually any Hitchcock film can be safely revisited without fear of boredom. It is difficult to choose a favourite out of STEPS or LADY as both are excellent entertainments packed with both adventure and humour (a recent re-reading of the original 1915 STEPS novel by John Buchan convinced me that the plot devised for the Hitchcock film is vastly more exciting than the original story which, for me is the weakest of the four novels featuring Richard Hannay). A chance meeting with an old friend from the 70's alerted me to the fact that a group of film enthusiasts known as the White Bus Company were screening Hitchcock's THE 39 STEPS in darkest Westcliff. Seeing the film again on a big (or biggish) screen with an appreciative audience was a real treat. The White Bus crowd are a friendly bunch who love movies, preserve them and screen them. As for the film itself, it easily stands up to many viewings and hardly needs to be discussed here except it deserves its reputation as one of the truly great British films and the performances by the entire cast are excellent with only superlatives being good enough for the stars - Robert Donat and Madeline Carroll. Rating *****

Last Night in Mariebad.......

Last night I went back to that hotel in Marienbad. I must have seen Alain Resnais' film LAST YEAR IN MARIENBAD half a dozen times since it was first released. It is a film that defies analysis and interpretation. Maybe it is a piece of pretentious nonsense and maybe it has something important to say. Of course, like anybody who sticks with the film until the end I have my own interpretation (which I do not ntend to tell you) that is much more straight forward than most of the others I have read. I love the film (it stars Delphine Seyrig so how could I not love it?) but beyond saying that I have no intention of reviewing did. Everytime I watch it I see things that I never saw before but last night I saw something I cannot believe that I have missed over the years. Eleven minutes into the film Alfred Hitchcock appears! I kid you not. At first I thought I'd imagined it so I replayed the scene and there he is. This morning I did a Google search and was relieved to find I am not going crazy and other viewers have spotted the great Alfred - or, it seems, a cardboard cutout of him. He's there - here's a picture to prove it (I have brightened the picture for clarity - the scene is much darker in the film).