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Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 Spy Thriller Is Officially Streaming for Free

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While it’s widely understood that Alfred Hitchcock hit his creative stride in the 1950s — this was when he made classics such as Vertigo, Rear Window, and North by Northwest — he had cultivated a robust career decades earlier. This was before his move to Hollywood, when he was still making British movies. Hitchcock’s career began in the silent era, and not many of his early films have survived. However, one of his classic British movies from the 1930s is now streaming for free on a brand-new platform. It joins The Lady Vanishes, another classic from that era, which has inspired everything from Jodie Foster’s Flightplan to the Netflix movie Fractured.

The classic was released in 1935 and is based on a novel of the same name by John Buchan. It set the template for several future Hitchcockian thrillers that revolved around a case of mistaken identity. The movie follows a man who is accused of murder and then becomes entangled in an espionage plot. A movie that was released as recently as this year shares virtually the same premise. We’re talking, of course, about Mutiny, the action movie starring Jason Statham. Like the Hitchcock classic, Mutiny follows Statham’s character as he goes on a quest to clear his name and uncover a human trafficking ring.

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Collider Exclusive · James Bond Personality Quiz
Which James Bond Actor Are You Most Like?
Connery · Moore · Dalton · Brosnan · Lazenby · Craig

Six actors. Six completely different visions of the same man — dangerous, charming, complicated, and almost certainly wearing a very good suit. Only one of them shares your particular way of moving through the world. Eight questions will figure out which Bond you really are.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Connery

😄Moore

🎭Dalton

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✨Brosnan

🤵Lazenby

💠Craig

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01

How do you carry yourself when you walk into a room?
Bond is always the most interesting person in the room. The question is how he makes you feel it.






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02

How do you handle a dangerous situation?
Every Bond faces it differently. What does your version look like?






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03

How do you charm someone you need on your side?
Bond always gets what he needs. The method varies considerably.






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04

How do you handle your emotions on the job?
Every Bond deals with this differently. Most of them not particularly well.






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05

How would your colleagues describe your working style?
MI6 has opinions about all of its 00s. What are theirs about you?






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06

How do you feel about operating within the rules?
The licence to kill comes with terms and conditions. Not everyone reads them.






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07

What is your relationship with love?
Every Bond has a different answer. None of them have found it easy.






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08

When the mission is over, how do you want to be remembered?
The name is Bond. The rest is entirely up to the man behind it.






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The Name Has Been Determined
Your Bond Is…

Six actors. One role. Your answers point to the Bond who shares your presence, your method, and your particular way of carrying the weight of being the most dangerous person in the room.

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Dr. No — You Only Live Twice · 1962–1967

Sean Connery
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You are the original — and you carry that fact without needing to announce it. There is an authority in the way you occupy a room that others spend careers trying to replicate.

  • You don’t explain yourself, justify yourself, or soften yourself for anyone’s comfort. The confidence is structural, not performed.
  • Connery’s Bond established everything — the tone, the danger, the cool — because Connery himself had the innate presence to make something that had never existed feel inevitable.
  • You share that quality: the sense that you were always going to end up exactly here, doing exactly this.
  • The name is Bond. In your case, it always was.


Live and Let Die — A View to a Kill · 1973–1985

Roger Moore
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You understand something that more serious people miss: that wit is its own form of intelligence, and that making people laugh is not a retreat from danger but a way of mastering it.

  • Moore’s Bond is underrated precisely because the effortlessness looks easy — and effortlessness is the hardest thing to manufacture.
  • You have the same quality: a lightness that disarms people before they realise how sharp you actually are.
  • The raised eyebrow, the perfectly timed quip, the refusal to be rattled — these are not affectations. They are a philosophy about how to move through a world that would like to take itself too seriously.
  • You have never let it.


The Living Daylights · Licence to Kill · 1987–1989

Timothy Dalton
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You took the role seriously when everyone wanted you to coast — and that refusal to take the easy version of anything is the most defining thing about you.

  • Dalton’s Bond has genuine moral weight: he feels the cost of what he does, he has lines he won’t cross, and he is not interested in the version of himself that pretends otherwise.
  • You share that intensity. You push harder than the situation technically requires, because you have a standard and you hold yourself to it.
  • He was ahead of his time — the Bond the franchise wasn’t quite ready for yet, arriving exactly when he was meant to.
  • You know what that feels like.


GoldenEye — Die Another Day · 1995–2002

Pierce Brosnan
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You are the complete package — and you know it, which is part of what makes you so effective and occasionally so infuriating to the people around you.

  • Brosnan arrived at the role looking exactly like Bond was supposed to look, and he delivered on that expectation with a professionalism that made it seem effortless.
  • You have the same quality: a smooth competence, a charm that operates like a precision instrument, and the ability to make even difficult things look like they weren’t.
  • His era was the most commercially successful in the franchise’s history. There is a reason for that.
  • The reason is that some people simply fit their moment perfectly. You are one of those people.


On Her Majesty’s Secret Service · 1969

George Lazenby
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You stepped into something enormous with less preparation than anyone around you thought was sufficient — and you delivered something genuine anyway, which is the more impressive achievement.

  • Lazenby’s single outing is, by many measures, one of the finest Bond films ever made — and he is not a small part of why.
  • You share his quality of raw authenticity: less polished than the alternatives, more honest for it, capable of something real that technique alone can’t produce.
  • He was underestimated, and then he wasn’t, and then history caught up with him.
  • You are the kind of person history catches up with. Give it time.


Casino Royale — No Time to Die · 2006–2021

Daniel Craig
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You stripped everything back and found what was underneath — and what was underneath was harder, more honest, and more human than anyone expected.

  • Craig’s Bond is the franchise’s most psychologically complete: a man doing a brutal job, carrying its costs imperfectly, capable of love and loss in ways that can’t be dismissed.
  • You share that depth. You don’t hide behind the role or the charm or the suit — you let the work show what it actually costs.
  • He was controversial from the moment he was announced and definitive by the time he was finished. The sceptics became the believers.
  • That arc — of being underestimated and then undeniable — is one you know intimately.

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The 1935 Classics Has Illustrious Fans

The classic is The 39 Steps, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. The film now holds a “Certified Fresh” 96% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the consensus reads, “Packed with twists and turns, this essential early Alfred Hitchcock feature hints at the dazzling heights he’d reach later in his career.” Years later, the legendary screenwriter of Chinatown, Robert Towne, said, “It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that all contemporary escapist entertainment begins with The 39 Steps.” The great Orson Welles was a huge fan as well, hailing The 39 Steps as a “masterpiece.” You can watch the movie for free on JustWatch TV, which is currently in beta phase, but slated to be launched in earnest this October. Stay tuned to Collider for more updates.


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Release Date

July 31, 1935

Runtime

86 Minutes

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Writers

John Buchan, Charles Bennett, Ian Hay

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