By comparison with the sinister delicacy and urbane understatement of The Thirty-nine Steps, the best of our melodramas seem crude and brawling.
100
TV Guide Magazine
TV Guide Magazine
One of Hitchcock's best British films, and a prototype for so much of what would follow in his American career. For those who love a grand spy mystery, a wild chase, and a harrowing portrait of an innocent man struggling to prove his innocence while the world turns inexplicably against him, The 39 Steps is ideal.
A significant precursor to the same film-maker's North by Northwest, it remains a supremely entertaining and accomplished work in its own right.
100
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
Slant MagazineChuck Bowen
Like Rear Window later on, this charming, masterfully made British spy adventure from 1935 is a sigh of doubt, perhaps even a cry of anguish, disguised as a slick pop bauble.
Hitchcock would make richer films in Hollywood, but The 39 Steps came off the line as the Model T of cinematic plot machines.
90
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
Village VoiceJ. Hoberman
The movie with which Hitchcock became Hitchcock.
90
Variety
Variety
Yes, they can make pictures in England. This one proves it. International spy stories are most always good, and this is one of the best. [19 Jun 1935, p.21]
80
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
Chicago ReaderDave Kehr
As an artist, Alfred Hitchcock surpassed this early achievement many times in his career, but for sheer entertainment value it still stands in the forefront of his work.
The Thirty-Nine Steps neatly converts its essential implausibility into an asset by stressing the difficulties which confront its hero when he tries to tell outsiders about the predicament he is in.
80
Time Out
Time Out
Other English Hitchcocks may be more provocative, but few offer such a ripping good yarn.