History YMMV / The39Steps1935

* OnceOriginalNowCommon: A lot of this film will seem overly familiar to a first time viewer. Not only did Creator/AlfredHitchcock borrow a lot from it for his later films, but practically every action or suspense movie owes something to it. It pioneered a bunch of EscapeTropes, and had memorable early uses of ChainedHeat[=/=]ChainsOfLove and LostInACrowd.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: A lot of this film will seem overly familiar to a first time viewer. Not only did Creator/AlfredHitchcock borrow a lot from it for his later films, but practically every action or suspense movie owes something to it. It pioneered a bunch of EscapeTropes, and had memorable early uses of ChainedHeat[=/=]ChainsOfLove and LostInACrowd.

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Mr. Memory only appears in the beginning and end, but is a key character, and, given his fate, even counts as TheWoobie. Creator/AlfredHitchcock himself cited him as one of his favorite characters in any of his movies.

* IdiotPlot: While the PragmaticAdaptation gives Richard an excuse to go to Scotland and meet the BigBad, there's still the question of why he didn't just go to the police after he left the apartment dressed as the milkman, and why he felt the need to insert himself into the spy plot. Annabella warned him that the police wouldn't believe him, but at the very least, if he went to them, it seems like they wouldn't have immediately suspected him of murder.
** And, of course, why didn't the spies just kill Richard along with Annabella? Though it's been pointed out that they may have been setting him up to get blamed for the murder, as opposed to the police being keen on solving a suspicious double murder.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: The plot hinges upon the fact that a girl in Richard Hannay's apartment ends up dead. The movie includes information that points to the girl being a spy, but all of this could easily be a hallucination by the schizophrenic Hannay. This turns Hannay from national hero to murderous psychopath and re-shades his interactions with women throughout the film in a much darker light. Considering this is one of the first "They think I did it but I didn't really do it" films, it could be considered a trope-maker.

** And, of course, why didn't the spies just kill Richard along with Annabella? Though it's been pointed out that they may have been setting him up to get blamed for the murder.

* IdiotPlot: While the PragmaticAdaptation gives Richard an excuse to go to Scotland and meet the BigBad, there's still the question of why he didn't just go to the police after he left the apartment dressed as the milkman, and why he felt the need to insert himself into the spy plot.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: It was a huge hit in Canada in its initial release, presumably because they enjoyed having Hannay identified as Canadian and the ShoutOut to Montreal and Winnipeg in his question for Mr. Memory, plus all the publicity surrounding John Buchan's recent appointment as Governor General of Canada. By contrast, in the US it was considered something of an AcclaimedFlop (though it did well in large cities, especially New York, which was the center of Hitchcock's American fandom in his British period).

* EnsembleDarkhorse: Mr. Memory only appears in the beginning and end, but is a key character, and, given his fate, even counts as TheWoobie.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Not only did Creator/AlfredHitchcock borrow a lot from this film in his later films, but practically every action or suspense movie owes something to it. It pioneered a bunch of EscapeTropes, and had memorable early uses of ChainedHeat[=/=]ChainsOfLove and LostInACrowd.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Not only did Creator/AlfredHitchcock borrow a lot from this film in his later films, but practically every action or suspense movie owes something to it. It pioneered a lot of EscapeTropes, and had memorable early uses of ChainedHeat[=/=]ChainsOfLove and LostInACrowd.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Not only did Creator/AlfredHitchcock borrow a lot from this film in his later films, but practically every action or suspense movie owes something to it. It pioneered a lot of EscapeTropes, and had memorable early uses of ChainedHeat[=/=]ChainsOfLove and LostInACrowd.

* IdiotPlot: While the PragmaticAdaptation gives Richard an excuse to go to Scotland and meet the BigBad, there's still the question of why he didn't just go to the police after he left the apartment dressed as the milkman, and why he felt the need to insert himself into the spy plot.