Today if anyone recognizes the title of THE 39 STEPS, they are thinking of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie with Robert Donat & Madeline Carroll. Yet it began life as a 1915 espionage novel by Scottish author and former Governor General of Canada, John Buchan. It is the first of a series of 5 books featuring mining engineer turned adventurer Richard Hanney. It is also one of the first of “the man on the run” plotlines involving an innocent man, accused of a murder he did not commit, who tries to clear his name by finding and exposing the true culprits. Set just before the outbreak of World War I, this story about German agents stealing state military secrets was popular not only in Britain but also with British soldiers in the trenches.
When Hitchcock got around to making his version, he significantly altered much of the original plot, setting it in then contemporary 1935 and adding the English Music Hall sequences featuring Mr Memory as well as the female love interest making it a “man and women on the run” story. Buchan’s son said that the film was 80% Hitchcock and only 20% his father’s work. Yes, it’s an early Hitchcock classic, but it’s not what the author intended. The movie was remade in 1959 as a virtual clone of the 1935 version only this time the film was in color. That version starred Kenneth More and Taina Elg and was directed by Ralph Thomas who was best known for the DOCTOR series of comedies in the 1950s that launched Dirk Bogarde’s career.
In the late 1970s the Rank Organisation, under the guiding hand of producer Tony Williams, made a last ditch attempt at making G rated movies for adults. They made 8 of these films between 1978 and 1980. While they were well regarded, their time had passed and only this remake, which was the first made, proved to be successful making 10 million at the box office on a budget of 2 million. Unlike the other two, this version of THE THIRTY NINE STEPS stuck closely to the original novel having Hanney on the run by himself. This time around, Buchan’s son said that the film was 80% his father and 20% the director. Only the ending was changed but what a change! Buchan’s family said that the author would have loved it.
The setting is pre-WWI Britain. A series of top level antiwar cabinet members have been assassinated. A retired agent, Colonel Scudder, uncovers a plot by Germany to plunge England into war before they are prepared to fight back. Discovered by German spies, he hides out in Hanney’s apartment and tries to explain what’s going on. He has a notebook with everything in code. When he’s murdered, Hanney is blamed and must avoid not only the spies but the police as well. He escapes to Scotland where he is pursued and eventually captured. After being aided by a Scottish couple, Hanney escapes and returns to London once the meaning of “the 39 steps” is figured out. This leads to a tense final showdown in the clock tower of Big Ben.
The director Don Sharp specialized in low budget action movies and horror films. A few of them (KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, PSYCHOMANIA, FACE OF FU MANCHU) have developed cult reputations while others (WITCHCRAFT, DARK PLACES, HENNESY,, THE FOUR FEATHERS) were critically well received. He has an excellent cast to work with that includes Robert Powell (as Hanney), David Warner, Karen Dotrice (all grown up from MARY POPPINS), and John Mills in the key role of Scudder.. STEPS is well photographed around London and in Scotland and has no aspirations to be anything other than the top notch entertainment that it is. Of the four versions (there’s also a TV movie from 2008), this one is clearly my favorite.
The Capsule Critic 