I just watched Hitchcock’s 39 Steps for the first time — or I thought it was for the first time. I actually vaguely remembered some scenes, though, so I must have seen it before.
Anyway, it’s clear why I forgot it. It’s forgettable. Halfway through it I was like, jeez, this must be one of Hitchcock’s clunkers, right? The plot might be better described as a plot hole — from the early murder of Annabelle Smith (who stabbed her? how’d they get in the apartment? why didn’t they stab that idiot Hanney as long as they were there?) to the moronic denoument (Mr. Memory starts blithely spouting spy secrets just because someone asks him about them — that’s convenient) the narrative lurches from one nonsensical improbability to another. It’s like it was written by monkeys with their frontal lobes removed.