Each refuge Hannay finds becomes a greater danger. He feigns friendship with a beautiful blonde in the railway car, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), but she turns him over to the police. A dour, puritanical crofter (John Laurie) is murderously jealous of his wife (Peggy Ashcroft). The urbane, elegant country squire, Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle), turns out to be the gang leader with the missing finger. Even the Sheriff (Frank Cellier) only pretends to believe his story, then turns him over to the spies. Hannay finally wins the trust of Pamela, after an awkward period of being handcuffed together. Their quest takes them back to the Palladium to Mr. Memory, who clears up the mystery before being shot by Professor Jordan.

2.  On Hitchcock's Style:  The present writer [Raymond Durgnat] would likewise insist that the real Hitchcock touch is a more diffuse affair than a moral schema, or points of style. It comprises a certain conjunction of elements, the absence of even one of which gives us a feeling of atypicality. The story ingredients include (1) violent death, (2) a physical or mental chase in which we identify with a pursued pursuer, so that (3) virtue appears menacing and indulgence deceptive, while (4) amorous badinage (or tormenting) proceeds and (5) hero and heroine are offered some dramatically plausible choices between good and evil and (6) "greys are everywhere" (the remark is Hitchcock's, although Chabrol and Rohmer substituted for it a transference of guilt, which is quite a different thing). There is a sense of having penetrated from an apparently tolerant, even permissive world, to a grimmer one, whose cruelties seem, confusingly both amoral and morally unremitting. In the British thrillers, everyday worlds of familiar foibles and eccentricities momentarily part to reveal grimmer patterns. There is usually, however, an affirmative return to a normally comfortable world.—Raymond Durgnat, The Strange Case of Alfred Hitchcock (1974)

3.  On The Lady Vanishes:  The action starts with the murder of Miss Smith, a German who spies for England. Just before succumbing to a fatal stabbing, she gives Hannay enough information to send him through the countryside in a search for the spies. This journey will not only secure his innocence and the secret; it will also involve him in an inner journey toward self-knowledge. There are major similarities here with North by Northwest, which is to come in 1959. In both, there is a flight from something not clearly understood to something even less clearly understood; an involvement with an attractive blond (Eva Marie Saint in North by Northwest); the transference of the hero, against his will, from security to insecurity; loss of identity through a forced change of dress or name; and a basic "mystery" plot which becomes increasingly subordinate to character analysis and themes of psychic integration. (A similar technique is used for the moral education of the heroine in The Lady Vanishes, which is also told in terms of a journey.)—Donald Spoto, The Art of Alfred Hitchcock (1979)

4.  Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Take One (François Truffaut interviewing Alfred Hitchcock):  I don't want to film a "slice of life" because people can get that at home, in the street, or even in front of the movie theatre. They don't have to pay money to see a slice of life. And I avoid out-and-out fantasy because people should be able to identify with the characters. Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out. The next factor is the technique of film-making, and in this connection I am against virtuosity for its own sake. Technique should enrich the action. One doesn't set the camera at a certain angle just because the cameraman happens to be enthusiastic about that spot. The only thing that matters is whether the installation of the camera at a given point is going to give the scene its maximum impact. The beauty of image and movement the rhythm and the effects—everything must be subordinated to the purpose.—Alfred Hitchcock in Francois Truffaut's Hitchcock (1967; revised edition 1984) (This fascinating interview by one of Hitchcock's admirers, who was himself a brilliant director [Les quatre cents coups (1959), Tirez sur le pianist (1960), Jules et Jim (1961)], is one of the truly great books on cinema. Hitchcock is one of those rare books of any kind that, once you've started, you simply can't put down.)

5.  Hitchcock on Hitchcock, Take Two (Peter Bogdanovitch interviewing Alfred Hitchcock:  Q: In all your chase films, why do you have the hero fleeing from both the police and the real criminals?

  A: One of the reasons is a structural one. The audience must be in tremendous apathy with the man on the run. But the basic reason is that the audience will wonder, "Why doesn't he go for the police?" Well, the police are after him, so he can't go to them, can he?

  Q:  Isn't it his sense of guilt that makes him so fervent?

  A: Well, yes, to some degree. In Thirty-Nine Steps maybe he feels guilt because the woman is so desperate and he doesn't protect her enough, he's careless.

  Q:  Is The Thirty-Nine Steps one of your favorite films?

  A:  Yes. Pretty much. What I liked about Thirty-Nine Steps were the sudden switches and the jumping from one situation to another with such rapidity. Donat leaping out of the win w of the police station with half of a handcuff on, and immediately walking into a Salvation Army Band, darting down an alleyway and into a room. "Thank God you've come, Mr. So-and-so," they say, and put him onto a platform. A girl comes along with two men, takes him in a car to the police station, but not—really to the police station—they are two spies. You know, the rapidity of the switches, that's the great thing about it. If I did The Thirty-Nine Steps again, I would stick to that formula, but it really takes a lot of work. You have to use one idea after another, and with such rapidity.—Alfred Hitchcock in Peter Bogdanovitch's The Cinema of Alfred Hitchcock (1963) (Peter Bogdanovitch is a well-known Hollywood director, best remembered for two modern classics, the films The Last Picture Show (1972) and Paper Moon (1973)