On Sexual Apathy and the Case of Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps

Pamela looks at Hannay as she removes her stockings - 

but he only has eyes for his sandwich.

Commentators often note the frigidity of Hitchcock blondes, but it's the seeming sexual indifference of Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat, that surprises and interests most in the famous bedroom scene from Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935).

True, he invites Pamela, played by Madeleine Carroll, to take off her skirt - an invitation she declines (I shall keep it on thank you!) - but he shows very little desire when she does decide to remove her wet stockings. His offer of assistance is more polite than pervy.

And even when his hand (fastened to hers) brushes against her legs, it does so in an involuntary and strangely limp manner that renders one of cinema's most erotically charged and kinkiest scenes strangely chaste at the same time. Ultimately, Hannay seems far more interested in his sandwich - Thank God for a bite to eat - and getting a good night's rest than in Pamela's bare limbs and feet.

Now, this could be because he's really very tired and hungry, having been on the run from foreign agents trying to kill him and policemen looking to arrest him for a murder he didn't commit for several long days.

But even at the opening of the film when a mysterious beauty asks him to take her home with him, Hannay makes no attempt at seduction. Rather, he cooks her fish in a manly manner, as A. L. Kennedy puts it (non-euphemistically), and then beds down on the couch; again, more concerned with sleep than in exploiting the opportunity for a sexual liaison.

Is this chivalry, or is it a sign of something else? I don't know.

I'm going to assume however - since I hate to pathologise - that Hannay is a true gentleman and not suffering from any form of sexual dysfunction; albeit a gentleman who appears to enjoy the company of women more than bedding them and who, one suspects, if obliged to eventually make love to them looks forward most of all to lighting up a post-coital cigarette.

On Women and Fish in The 39 Steps

Lucie Mannheim as Annabella Smith and Peggy Ashcroft as Margaret

in Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935)

Starring a very dashing Robert Donat as Richard Hannay and an ice-cold and elegant Madeleine Carroll as Pamela, Hitchcock's The 39 Steps is a masterclass in how to construct a compelling cinematic narrative in which melodrama seamlessly combines with screwball comedy.

Obviously, the most memorable of all scenes is that in which Pamela - whilst still handcuffed to Hannay and unsure whether he’s an innocent man desperate to clear his name, or a sadistic murderer on the run - awkwardly removes her wet stockings. It remains an unsurpassed moment of kinky delight that lovers of film and fetish have cherished for over 80 years.

However, there are two other scenes and two supporting performances that I’m also very fond of, each involving a vulnerable woman - and a fish.

The first takes place in Hannay’s London flat when he cooks a haddock for Annabella, the mysterious spy played by Lucie Mannheim, a Jewish actress forced into exile from her native Germany by the Nazis. As one who knows what it is to genuinely fear for her future and have to flee and to hide, she plays the part with real conviction and makes Hannay's ironic remark about persecution mania cruelly apt.

The second scene, which parallels and reverses elements of the above, unfolds in the crofter’s cottage. Hannay charms the young wife, Margaret, played by Peggy Ashcroft, who asks him if it’s true that all the ladies in London paint their toenails, before cooking him a fish for supper and then helping him escape from the police in the middle of the night, thus vicariously fulfilling her own desire to flee the loveless existence to which she's been doomed by marriage to an older man (played by John Laurie).

Both these women seek out and desperately require Hannay's help. They are, in a sense, as caught up in circumstances beyond their control as he is. And yet Hannay is unable to save either of them; Annabella is murdered and Margaret abandoned to a life of rural misery and domestic violence.

Only Pamela refuses to be bullied or victimised by any man. She may be dragged all over the Scottish moors by Hannay, but she never loses her sangfroid. Say what you like about Hitchcock blondes, but they're never going to allow themselves to be done up like kippers ...