One of the final films Alfred Hitchcock directed in England before moving on to the greener pastures of Hollywood, 1935 crime thriller “The 39 Steps” is often considered one of the greatest British films of all time. Loosely based on the novel “The Thirty-Nine Steps” by Joe Buchan, the film tells the tale of Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Londoner who accidentially gets entangled in a dangerous web of espionage. Hannay is at a London music hall theater, watching a performance by “Mr. Memory”, a man with a photographic memory. Shots are fired inside the theater, and Hannay finds himself holding a woman named Annabella Smith, who convinces him to take her to his apartment. She informs Hannay that she is a spy, and that assassins are on her tail for uncovering a plot to steal British military secrets. The operation is run by a criminal mastermind with a top joint missing from one of his fingers. Later that night, Smith is stabbed in Hannay's apartment, and dies with a map of Scotland with a village circled clutched in her hands. Hannay flees his apartment and travels to Scotland. He has to avoid the police chasing for Smith's murder, somehow getting deeper and deeper into trouble with every new discovery he makes as he tries to find the man with a shortened finger and a mysterious organization called “The 39 Steps”.
Joan Rivers still in coma
