39 Steps

A lovely jaunty comedic thriller loosely based on the John Buchan novel on the same name following the desperate plight of Richard Hannay and his attempts to evade the police and stop the 39 Steps spy ring succeeding. Overall very entertaining and it passed the Mark Kermode laugh test of at least 5 hearty laughs needed to make a good comedy. The lighting was pure film noir, a subject I have been learning about from an expert, and other aspects such as shadows, femme fatales and private eye/cop/ spy character. It was also fun to spot the Hitchcock references and although they were not overly subtle I am sure that I missed a few of them. I was also love the way that there are only four (or are there) member of the cast so they all play multiple roles sometimes in the same scene. The Hannay/ Bra salesman/ police/ newspaper boy scene is very funny and beautifully choreographed. I also love the way that the make up for the fact that cannot get some props on the stage so the scene set on top of a moving railway carriage is priceless.