Since Alfred Hitchcock's well-known version from 1935, there have been two further adaptations of John Buchan's "The 39 Steps". The 1978 version with Robert Powell kept the pre-World War I setting and was much more faithful to Buchan's plot than Hitchcock had been. The 1959 version, however, was a remake of Hitchcock's film, keeping much of the plot, and even some of the dialogue, of his version. (It came out in the same year as "North by Northwest", which can be seen as Hitchcock's own unacknowledged remake of his own film).Just as Hitchcock updated the story to the thirties, so this one updates it to the fifties. Modern audiences tend to assume that the villains in the Hitchcock film are agents of Nazi Germany, although this is never made explicit and for thirties audiences Stalin's Russia might have suggested itself as an alternative possibility. In the 1959 film, made during the Cold War, there is little doubt that the villains are working for the Soviet Union, although again this is never explicitly stated.In this version the hero, Richard Hannay, is not a Canadian (as he was in Hitchcock's film) but an Englishman, recently returned from working in the Middle East. (In Buchan's novel he was a Scot who had worked in South Africa). He meets by chance a woman who reveals to him that she is a spy, working for British Intelligence, and has uncovered a plot by a mysterious organisation known as "The Thirty Nine Steps" to steal the top-secret plans for a new British ballistic missile. (In Hitchcock's version the secret information related to a new aircraft engine). She tells Hannay that she must leave for Scotland immediately, but while he is out of the room, she is killed by two hit men. Fearing he will be accused of her murder, he decides to continue her mission and catches a train to Scotland. The plot continues along much the same lines as Hitchcock's, although there are a few changes. The heroine whom Hannay meets on the train is, for example, a sports teacher at a girls' public school. There are also some added scenes, such as the one where Hannay stays at an inn whose landlady turns out to be a spiritualist medium.Hitchcock's film was a comedy-thriller which combined suspense with humour, and the remake was intended in the same vein. Ralph Thomas was known as a director of both comedies (such as the "Doctor" films) and thrillers (such as "The Clouded Yellow") so he doubtless seemed the right man for the job. Compared to the original, however, this film is a pedestrian affair. To be fair to Thomas, part of the blame lies with the actors. Kenneth More plays Hannay as the sort of decent, middle-class stiff-upper-lipped English gentleman which had become his stock-in-trade, a characterisation which seems stolid and uninteresting next to the panache of Robert Donat's dashing action hero. The casting of the Finnish actress Taina Elg as Miss Fisher was an unsuccessful attempt to inject some Continental glamour into the film. Elg always comes across as dull and unglamorous, especially when compared to Madeleine Carroll who played the equivalent role in the Hitchcock film, and her foreign accent makes it difficult to accept her as a British schoolmistress.Some of the blame for the film's comparative failure, however, must lie with the director and scriptwriters. Some of the scenes, such as Hannay's escape on the Forth railway bridge, are indeed better done here than they were in the original, which is perhaps not surprising given that Thomas evidently had more financial resources available to him than did Hitchcock. The film as a whole, however, lacks the sense of movement and excitement which characterised Hitchcock's. The attempts at humour generally fall flat. The scene with the milkman is mishandled; in the original the humour arises from the fact that the milkman refuses to believe the truth but readily believes Hannay's false story about being a lover escaping from a jealous husband. In the remake Hannay simply comes out with the invented story without any attempt to tell the true one. The other comic high point of Hitchcock's film, the scene at the political meeting, here becomes an attempt to give a lecture to the assembled schoolgirls, and loses much of its point.This is not a particularly bad film, and is certainly not the worst Hitchcock remake. (That dubious distinction must belong to Gus van Sant's horrible version of "Psycho"). Nevertheless, the filmmakers seem to have failed to realise that trying to improve on Hitchcock's version was a vain endeavour. Had they wanted to make a new version of "The 39 Steps" they should have gone back to Buchan, as the makers of the 1978 film did. 5/10

"The 39 steps" is quite an enjoyable Kenneth More movie.Like a good boy scout Mr More is unflappable,resourceful,straightforward,clean in word and deed and whistles cheerfully under all difficulties.He carries a comb with him and manages to look manly wearing pale - blue shorts.He is a nice middle - class 1950s English hero,soon to be drowned under an ocean of vicious foul - mouthed murderous thugs who will beat the film audiences into submission to such an extent that well - spoken chaps with service flats in town and spare time on their hands to save the old country from Johnny Foreigner will shortly disappear from our screens for ever - or at least until Don Sharp's brilliant 1970's remake. There is very little actually "wrong" with this movie.It's main weakness is Miss Tania Elg who has no obvious reason for being in the picture.She can't act,she can't react and she can't even wear her clothes convincingly.It seems to me that doing the movie was a chore she just had to get done before she was allowed to go out to play. She seems an irrelevance to Mr More too,which is unfortunate as she was presumably meant to provide the love interest.Miss Brenda de Banzie proves far more interesting in that department. Mr Duncan Lamont and Mr Michael Goodliffe are good as the villains,the chillingly named Kennedy and Brown,possibly coincidentally the names of the murderers of PC Gutteridge in 1928 in Essex who shot his eyes out in fear of the superstition that the retina retained the image of the last image it saw in life. The obvious Hitchcockian "hommages" are present but not offensive and it is a delight to see Mr Reginald Beckwith and Mr James Hayter in the same movie. Watching this,you can see why Mr More was the most bankable male British actor for years.He exhudes charm,honesty,humour and good chappishness and the ladies loved him.Most people back in 1959 did not see this as a remake of a great original,merely as a good comedy - thriller starring one of their favourite actors,perhaps,nearly half a century on,we should be doing the same.

I can't remember much of the original film version of THE 39 STEPS but seeing this remake a couple of days ago I got the distinct feeling that it's rather inferior to the Hitchcock version . Much of the problem lies with the director Ralph Thomas who has a long and successful track record of making comedies and he seems unsuited for thrillers , everything seems a little too lightweight here and it's not helped by the cheery and jovial musical score or indeed Sid James playing a straight role as a lorry driver . It should also be pointed out that while Kenneth More plays an affable type of hero in Richard Hannay he lacks the dashing charm of Robert Donat in the original and is probably less effective than the slightly angry young man of Robert Powell in the latter 70s remake . More's Richard Hannay would probably have appeared too much of an old fashioned hero in 1959 to be taken entirely serious . He's by no means bad but remember DR NO was just around the corner and that movie turned the world upside down as to what made a cinematic hero . That's the problem , everything is too old fashioned from the polite tea parties to actresses in their late 20s/early 30s playing schoolgirls There is another problem and that's the screenplay sticks to closely to the tone of the original . I dispute what it says in the IMDb trivia section about this movie being a shot for shot remake of the original Hitchcock version but it totally lacks an updated feel . War clouds were approaching when THE 39 STEPS was made in 1935 while the 1970s version used the approaching great war as its backdrop but does THE THIRTY NINE STEPS of 1959 feel like the West is engaged on a cold war crusade against communism ? There seems to be little sense of a political time and place with the bad guys coming across more of a criminal gang than traitors to the country . Unless I'm mistaken I don't think the word " Communism " features onceA very disappointing remake . I recommend the original or the 1978 version

This 1959 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps is so far removed from the original work by John Buchan that it does neither any justice to compare the two.As it is, it has to be taken as a standalone movie and, as such, it fails miserably.The plot, performances (particularly those of the support actors) and set-pieces are all woefully under-par for even a movie of this modest magnitude. The pacing is extremely questionable, with the all-important finale seemingly tacked-on to allow more time for a pointless romance to emerge two-thirds into the film. There is also a slight comedic theme running throughout, odd and inappropriate for an alleged taut espionage thriller. Avoid.2/10