Right in the beginning of the film (time stamp: 1:49), you begin to see some smoke passing through the room as the announcer introduces the infamous Mr. Memory. You can already see a pattern with Hitchcock’s techniques with “The Lodger” and “The 39 Steps.” In the Lodger, smoke appears right before they introduce the Lodger to the audience, and in “The 39 Steps,” smoke appears seconds before Mr. Memory is introduced. This pattern infers that Mr. Memory will play a significant role in the film, just as the Lodger did.
The shot of Hannay and Annabella (time stamp: 6:51) is a point-of-view shot. Later on in the film, Hannay is chased down by the police, who are accusing him of being the perpetrator in Annabella’s stabbing. The POV shot allows us to see in the eyes of the person who is potentially responsible for framing Hannay. It also could be the person who stabs Annabella, in an attempt to follow her to kill her. The contrast of black and white to this shot also hints to foreshadowing something bad happening to Hannay or Annabella.
In the scene where Annabella tells Hannay the truth about who she really is (time-stamp: 9:56), Hannay turns on the light when they both enter the room. The lightbulb is right above both of their heads, and the use of light in this shot almost predicts that the truth about something is going to be revealed. In this case, Annabella tells him the truth about how she fired the shots in the theater to create a diversion to get away from the two men who are supposedly trying to kill her. Light is commonly used to distinguish truth and lies, and Annabella reveals her occupation as a spy.
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