The 39 Steps (1935 film)

"[assuming a false identity] Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for my hesitation in rising just now, but to tell you the simple truth, I'd entirely failed, while listening to the chairman's flattering description of the next speaker, to realize he was talking about me. As for you, may I say, from the bottom of my heart and with the utmost sincerity, how delighted and relieved I am to find myself in your presence at this moment. Delighted, because of your friendly reception, and relieved, because as long as I stand on this platform, I'm delivered from the moment - from the cares and anxieties which must always be the lot of a man in my position. When I journeyed up to Scotland a few days ago, traveling on the Highland Express, over that magnificent structure, the Forth Bridge, that monument to Scottish engineering and Scottish muscle, I had no idea that within a few days' time, I should find myself addressing an important political meeting. No idea. I planned a different program for myself. A very different program."

"The idle rich? That's kind of an old-fashioned topic these days, especially for me because I'm not rich and I've never been idle. I've been very busy all my life and I expect to be much busier quite soon....And I know what it is to feel lonely and helpless and to have the whole world against me, and those are things that no man or woman ought to feel. And I ask your candidate and all those who love their fellow men to set themselves resolutely to make this world a happier place to live in, a world where no nation plots against nation. Where no neighbor plots against neighbor, where there is no persecution or hunting down, where everybody gets a square deal and a sporting chance, and where people try to help and not to hinder. A world from which suspicions of cruelty and fear have been forever banished. That is the sort of world I want! Is that the sort of world you want?"

"[a flock of sheep block the road as the car screeches to a halt] Hello, what are we stopping for? Oh, it's a whole flock of detectives."

"I've got it! I've got it! Of course, there are no papers missing. All the information's inside Memory's head...Don't you see? The details of the Air Ministry secrets were borrowed, memorized by this little man, and then replaced before anyone could find out. That's why he's here tonight to take Memory out of the country after the show."

"Sheriff: And this bullet stuck among the hymns, eh? Well, I'm not surprised, Mr. Hannay. Some of those Calvinist prayers are terrible hard to get through."

"Handcuffed to the girl who double-crossed him"

"The "Monte Cristo" hero..."

"The MAN who put the MAN in roMANce."

"A hundred steps ahead of any picture this year"

"The Most Charming Brute Who Ever Scorned A Lady"

"Fated to be Mated with the One Man She Hated"

"Robert Donat - Richard Hannay"

"Madeleine Carroll - Pamela"

"Lucie Mannheim - Miss Annabella Smith"

"Godfrey Tearle - Professor Jordan"

"Peggy Ashcroft - Margaret"

"John Laurie - John"

"Helen Haye - Mrs. Louisa Jordan"

"Frank Cellier - Sheriff Watson"

"Wylie Watson - Mr. Memory"

"When a picture is as good as The Thirty-nine Steps, it is almost superfluous to detail its individual virtues. I could advise you of its best moments— the scene in the political meeting, where Hannay, escaping from the police, is taken for a platform speaker, the Glencoe sequences, beautifully shot in the Highlands through a movable window frame, the glimpse down from the Forth Bridge, the thrilling shot with the foreshortened finger, the charming and expertly managed section In the inn bedroom. I could explain how steadily Hitchcock has refrained from any kind of technical chicanery, how still he keeps his cameras, how adamant he has been against trick cutting. I could point out a hundred ingenuities in the picture, and enjoy doing it, because for once in the cinema recollection is a pleasure. But it will be simpler and less selfish, I think, to include everything in the one recommendation, go to The Thirty-nine Steps and find it all out for yourselves."