Boring, long, and too preachy.

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

There have been several versions of this movie - beginning with the most famous by A.Hitchcock in 1939. This 1959 version is much closer to the story, but seems to follow the screenplay of Hitchcock more so than the book by John Buchan. The 1978 version (directed by Don Sharp and starred Robert Powell as Hannay) was the closest to Buchan's original.It was just as the First World War was about to ignite when Bachan penned the story while convalescing in Broadstairs, England. The journey begins in Spring 1914. In this version, the spy is a woman. In the book the spy is a man. The artistic freedoms used throughout all the versions (save the '78 version) do no harm to Bachan's plot. The women, the romances all give a flavor to the mystery "Shocker." Coming as close as possible to the vintage trains and automobiles are easily overlooked nowadays since the trains of the late 50s, though considerably newer than in 1914, don't harm the story. And using a real Scottish setting in some of the scenes only confirms the beauty of the story.

Kenneth More is Richard Hanny in what is essentially a bright and colorful version of the Hitchcock film. Its the second screen version (followed by the more faithful to source version from the late 1970's and a BBC TV version from a few years ago). Its the classic story of the wrong man on the run having to unravel the mystery that officials are too blind to see. Its a good little film on its own but suffers in comparison to the other versions. There are two problems with the film, first the bright daylight and colors work against the mood. the other problem is Kenneth Moore is too stalwart a hero to be anything other than a man of action. he carries himself with such aplomb that its hard to believe that he could ever not come out on top.. Other versions aside, its a good little film that is fine in its own terms. For me having recently seen the Hitchcock film a couple of times, not to mention the stage adaption I found myself all "stepped" out. Worth a look if you can manage to see it.

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

So far, there have been three film versions of this film, though there has been another announced for this year (2005). I can't really do any of the others down, and in fact the Hitchcock version starring Robert Donat is a classic. This is probably the least good of the three, due to the poor cinematography and lack of continuity in the lighting. That having been said, Kenneth More is really on form in this, and actually uses the dull background to great effect by allowing himself to become the focus of the film at all times. This is, of course, an ideal way to view the film as it fits the story perfectly. Not a film I can watch more than once a year, but definitely worth a viewing every twelve months.