This is what used to be called- and probably still is- an adventure yarn. I think it's fair to say they don't make them like this any more. Hitchcock's gift for suspense allied to his much underrated comic direction are both utilised to the full in this film.
Robert Donat plays a holidaying Canadian in London who stumbles across a spy plot and is engaged in a race against time to save the entire Western world. I'll be honest, it requires a pretty healthy suspension of disbelief. The whole thing moves at great pace, the dialogue is snappy and memorable, the performances are- and I don't think it's a criticism necessarily- very typical of the period (especially Lucie Mannheim's death), and the drama is intensified skilfully with occasional and timely comic relief by Hitch.
The whole thing exemplifies pre-Hollywood Hitchcock at his most confident- the maid's squeal which is replaced by a screaming steam train, the suspicious and oppressive crofter who is by turns comical and villainous, the conversation in which Donat persuades the milkman to aid his escape and lurches from sinister to comedic to dramatic in mere seconds, the dramatic chase across the Scottish moors and finally the mise-en-scene which switches from the death of Mr Memory to the chorus girls to the happy coming together of the film's stars. Marvellous utilisation of the raw ingredients.
Most importantly of all, the film's female lead Madeleine Carroll was born in my home town West Bromwich. If this was awful I'd still give it a decent mark on the basis of that alone. But it isn't, it's delicious and dramatic and funny and exciting and a worthy 9/10.
