Ivor Barnard was an English stage, radio and film actor. He was an original member of the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, where he was a notable Shylock and Caliban. He was the original Water Rat in the first London production of A. A. Milne's "Toad of Toad Hall". In 1929 he appeared on stage as Blanquet, in "Bird in Hand" at the Morosco Theatre in New York, after a successful run in London's West End. The part had been specially written for him by John Drinkwater.

The 39 Steps is a 1935 British spy thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll. It is loosely based on the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It concerns a Canadian civilian in London, Richard Hannay, who becomes caught up in preventing an organisation of spies called "The 39 Steps" from stealing British military secrets. Mistakenly accused of the murder of a counter-espionage agent, Hannay goes on the run to Scotland and becomes tangled up with an attractive woman, Pamela, while hoping to stop the spy ring and clear his name.