What appears to have been a plot point in James M. Barrie's novel The Little Minister, which I confess I have not read, was used in the 1921 film starring Betty Compson:
"The weavers of Thrums are riotous over the reduction in wages. Lady Barbara Rintoul (Babbie) is in the habit of disguising herself as a gypsy and aiding the poor in the village. In her disguise she is able to prevent disastrous results from a riot, and meets and falls in love with the Little Minister of the village, who pretends she is his wife to save her from the soldiers on riot duty. This constitutes a legal marriage in Scotland."
Chapman, Mrs. Woodallen. "Better Films." Moving Picture Age 5(3). March 1922. 30, 32.
Alfred Hitchcock was a great admirer of Barrie's, greatly affected by his play Mary Rose and later owning his "every first edition" (Spoto 1999, 115). The film The Little Minister was produced by Famous Players-Lasky in America, and its star Betty Compson someone with whom Hitchcock would later work on several occasions. Hitchcock was then working for that company's British branch; it too produced a film using the same plot point:
“The plot [of The Bonnie Brier Bush] turns upon the fact, not as widely known as it might be, that acknowledging a woman to be your wife before a witness constitutes a legal marriage in Scotland, a point that exhibitors might do well to exploit when advertising the picture.” ("Bonnie Brier Bush" 1922, 133).
"Crescent Today—Tomorrow." Cornell Daily Sun [Ithaca, NY]. December 6, 1922: 4 col 3.
The idea of a Scottish marriage nearly made it into one of Hitchcock's iconic films, The 39 Steps, as he noted in an interview years later:
“You know, originally, I’d shot another scene [for the end of The 39 Steps]. They drive away from the theater in a cab. [Robert] Donat says, ‘Now that’s all over, and I can start paying attention to my wife.’ ‘Your wife?’ [Madeline Carroll] says. ‘Are you married?’ ‘Yes, I’m married to you.’ ‘How?’—and he tells her that the rule in Scotland is that if you declare yourself man and wife in front of a witness, you are man and wife, so they’d been married while hiding at the inn” (Samuels 1972, 242).
The marriage had not been part of Buchan's original text The Thirty-Nine Steps, though the character Richard Hannay (played by Donat in the film) had been of Scottish heritage therein. "My father had brought me out from Scotland at the age of six, and I had never been home since" (de V. 1915, 33). Hitchcock's film made Hannay a Canadian.
It can be hard, sometimes, to know what to make of a Hitchcock story about a cut scene when he was describing it decades later. One of the strangest, perhaps, involves a film released about four years prior to The 39 Steps:
"In Rich and Strange there was a scene in which the young man is swimming with a girl and she stands with her legs astride, saying to him, 'I bet you can't swim between my legs.'
"I shot it in a tank. The boy dives, and when he's about to pass between her legs, she suddenly locks his head between her legs and you see the bubbles rising from his mouth. Finally, she releases him, and as he comes up, gasping for air, he sputters out, 'You almost killed me that time,' and she answers, 'Wouldn't that have been a beautiful death?'
"I don't think we could show that today because of censorship."
François Truffaut responded to Hitchcock, "I've seen two different prints of that picture, but neither one showed that scene." (Truffaut 1985, 81). Nobody seems to have seen that scene and it's hard to imagine any censor passing it at the time. Perhaps it's just a scene Hitchcock wished he could have done?
Whatever the case, there is some circumstantial evidence for the Scottish marriage ending to The 39 Steps, if not necessarily of it being lensed then at least of it having been an idea in play that might have been in a script. It was used in a magazine fictionization (short novelization) of the film, published the same year as the film's release:
It was late that night when Richard and Pamela finally left the Paladium and walked, hand in hand, down the avenue.
“Well, I’ll say this for the English police,” Richard grinned. “When they find they’ve made a mistake, they certainly apologize for it!”
“Darned decent of them,” Pamela commented sarcastically, “considering that you uncovered one of the biggest spy rings in the world and saved the country’s most vital piece of air defense information from being blabbed all over Europe!” She glanced up at him and asked, “What are you going to do next?”
“Meet your family, I guess. The next thing, you’ll expect me to marry you!” He stopped suddenly and tilted her face up, looking deep into her eyes. “By Gosh! Know what? We’re married already. Last night . . . Scottish Hotel. ‘Are you man and wife?’ the innkeeper asks, I nod, you nod. That’s marriage by declaration according to Scottish law!”
“And what are you going to do about it?” Pamela asked flippantly.
For an answer, Richard took her in his arms and kissed her ("The 39 Steps" 1935, 94).
Fictionizations would sometimes take liberties with the stories of films, no doubt in part because condensing a feature-length film based on a novel down to short story-length could be challenging. Magazine writers might also have been trying to work something creative into the process of authoring something derivative; the fictionization of Rope, for example, is narrated by the character murdered in the opening scene: "Five minutes ago I was murdered" (Webster 1948, 49).
The end of The 39 Steps as it was released shows Richard and Pamela, hand in hand, in the theatre, a handcuff still conspicuously dangling from his right wrist. The shot has the character's rear ends in the vertical center of the screen, and after it fades to black it is followed by a title card with "THE END" in that space. Hitchcock enjoyed puns, and would end one of his later films with a final shot he described as "probably one of the most impudent shots I ever made", that of a train going into a tunnel to suggest sex (Truffaut 1985, 150).
Christopher K. Philippo
Bibliography
Barrie, J.M. The Little Minister. NY: United States Book Company, 1891. 92.
“The Bonnie Brier Bush.” Exhibitor’s Trade Review 11(2). December 10, 1922. 133.
de V., H. [John Buchan]. "The Thirty-Nine Steps." Blackwood's Magazine 198(1197). July 1915. 33.
Samuels, Charles Thomas. Encountering Directors. NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1972. 242. Rpt. in Gottlieb, Sidney, ed. Alfred Hitchcock: Interviews. Jackson, MI: University Press of Mississipi, 2003.
Spoto, Donald. The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock." NY: Da Capo Press, 1999. 115.
“The 39 Steps.” Screen Romances. December 1935. 94.
Truffaut, François. Hitchcock. Rev. Ed. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1985.
Webster, Frank. “Rope.” Screen Stories. 39(5). October 1948. 48-49, 77-82.
