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Popular modern film audiences often forget to discuss The 39 Steps (1935), one of Alfred Hitchcock’s early pictures and a notable entry in the “wrong man” template he (and hundreds of other filmmakers) would revisit with great success. The 39 Steps is far from a perfect film, but has all the makings of Hitchcockian trademarks that would evolve into films like North By Northwest (1959) and establish the director as a legendary auteur of cinema.

The subject of The 39 Steps is definitive Hitchcock thriller—the “wrong man,” in this case Mr. Hannay (Robert Donat), is accused of murder after a female spy named Smith (Lucy Mannheim) is killed in his flat while he sleeps. Who actually killed her? We never find out and the film doesn’t seem to mind. Hannay spends the film pursued by police and spies alike, evading capture, and slowly uncovering a conspiracy driven by the classic Hitchcock macguffin of “information” and “secrets” being “moved out of the country.” Similar “government secrets” would serve as the catalyst of North By Northwest two and a half decades later, in a much tighter American film with relatively the same plot.

What The 39 Steps did for Hitchcock is establish a blueprint. Details, plot points, and set pieces are all established that go on to provide a foundation for many of his later works. The wronged man on the run, a woman whose doubt needs reversed and coerced into assistance, showdowns in public venues—even the act of a man kissing a woman to hide in plain sight from pursuers—all found their footing in The 39 Steps.

Hitchcock had already directed more than a dozen features prior to The 39 Steps, but it is often regarded as his first Hitchcockian film, in that it is the first film to embody the elements for which the filmmaker is most known. It also has the familiar pacing and feel of a Hitchcock piece, albeit a style in development. He controls the pulse of the narrative with moments of tension and those of humor, lingering on pieces with an eye for detail that enrich the story as much as possible. The 39 Steps isn’t a very complex story, and Hitchcock knows this—he also knows the way a film is presented can be equally important to the actual story being told. With that, he flexes his formatting muscles and creates an intriguing film based on little plot.

The 39 Steps also introduces one of Hitchcock’s most notable trends: the sexual and alluring companionship of a blonde, here named Pamela and played by Madeline Carroll. She is the first of Hitch’s notable blonde beauties, and throughout the course of the film makes a transition from Hannay’s opposition to his partner in virtue. This transition is made after the two are handcuffed to one another in bed—an erotic and challenging situation masterfully designed by Hitchcock. He creates a film about escapist tension and fantastic fulfillment with the same thread.

The way Hitchcock shifts tone between thriller and mild comedy are brilliant and display a director with aptitude for managing moods. This would become all-too common in his later works. He is keen to shrug off unrealistic details and inexplicable situations as inconsequential macguffins to keep the plot flowing, as would become his keenest trademark for tossing a regular Joe into an unlikely series of crazy events. The 39 Steps is an early look at what made Hitchcock Hitchcock, here a man on the edge of birthing an intelligent and inimitable cinematic proficiency.