The Thirty Nine Steps (1978 film)

The Thirty Nine Steps [sic] is a British 1978 thriller film directed by Don Sharp, with screenplay by British playwright Michael Robson, based on the novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. It was the third film version of the 1915 novel.

This version of Buchan's tale starred

Powell later reprised the role in the ITV series Hannay which ran for 13 episodes from 1988 to 1989.

Plot

In

Hannay reluctantly gives Scudder shelter in his flat, despite his initial distrust of him. In the morning, Hannay leaves to purchase a train ticket to his family hometown, the village of Strathallan north in Scotland, while Scudder remains at work on his notes in the flat. When the Prussian agents attempt to enter the flat, Scudder flees down the fire escape but he is spotted. Posting a package containing his secret notebook in a pillar box, Scudder flees to the St Pancras railway station, where he knows Hannay will be, to give him a second black book.

At the railway station, just seconds before he can reach Hannay, Scudder is murdered by the agents. With his dying breath he gives Hannay a message he doesn't quite understand. Unfortunately however, Hannay is mistaken by witnesses at the railway station as being the assailant and is arrested but is soon captured by the Prussians while being transferred in loose security to jail. During their interrogation of Hannay, they ask what he knows of the "Thirty Nine Steps". The Prussians allow him to get away and escape in the hope he will later lead them to the secret notebook. At St Pancras, Hannay manages to find Scudder's second notebook, but this turns out to be a dummy, with only a three-word riddle in it. Only Hannay can understand the riddle, which sends him up to Scotland to find the real notebook. Hannay flees to Scotland on a northbound train, but he is forced to make a daredevil escape jumping on a bridge when the police board the railway cars.

Hannay attempts to solve the mystery whilst on the run from the police "bobbies", led by Chief Superintendent Lomas (Eric Porter), and the Prussian agents, led by Sir Edmund Appleton, a Prussian sympathiser highly placed in the British Royal government.

On the Scottish

When the Metropolitan Police of London and Hannay reach the top of the clock tower, the agents have already planted the bomb and have locked the clock room. Hannay realises that the bomb is to be set off by the clock timer mechanism at 11.45 am. To give the police more time, Hannay breaks the glass of the outside clock-face, climbs out onto the face of the clock, almost 100 meters above ground and physically stops the minute hand as it moves towards the figure IX (11:00 pm). By hanging from the end of the minute hand, Hannay manages to jam the clock at 11.44 am, one minute before, long enough for the police to break into the clock room where they kill the remaining spies and deactivate the bomb. The clock mechanism jams and stops working before the clock's minute hand falls into a vertical position at 11:30 am. Hannay, however, still hangs on and one of the officers saves him with a looped rope larriat. Lomas recognises a Thames River Police uniform and at the docks Hannay and other officers capture Appleton, who had also stolen secret details of the deployment of all Royal Navy warships.

Sir Edmund Appleton is convicted of treason and Richard Hannay is declared a hero for helping Britain gain valuable time to prepare defences for a future "

Cast

Production

Producer Greg Smith said he wanted to make the film because he had always been a fan of John Buchan's books and wanted to do a version of The Thirty-Nine Steps which was "true to the period in which the novel was set, just prior to the Great War, when Europe was one huge powderkeg and nobody knew what a world war was."^[1]

The executive producer was James Kenelm Clarke who said the film "was an Edwardian melodrama, the way we think Buchan would have liked to see his own penny dreadful." The rights became available when Rank did not renew the licence. Clarke bought them for what he said was "a tremendous amount of money", had a script written by Michael Robson, which he then took back to Rank. They agreed to finance when Robert Powell agreed to play Hannay.^[3]

Smith claimed "the Hitchcock version was about 20 percent Buchan and 80 percent Hitchcock. Our goal was to turn it around and make the film 80 percent Buchan and 20 percent invention."^[1] Smith chose Sharp to direct "because he's one of Britain's best action adventure directors and he was familiar with the period."^[1] Sharp had recently shot a remake of The Four Feathers with Powell.^[5] He said making the film was a very enjoyable experience.^[6]

Powell said "If we had tried to use Buchan's book literally we would not have had a film at all. For one thing it's thoroughly anti-Semitic and no one would get away with that."^[3]

Robert Powell was cast in part because of his success in the mini series

In the book, the 39 steps lead down to a beach and filmically there is not much you can do with that. Today, audiences demand more of a grandstand finish. That was the major liberty we took – the ending. People can say, 'You're not being true to the ending,' as they stay away by the millions... [Big Ben was chosen for the end] because it was an analogy we were working for – Europe was a time bomb in 1914. And we figured that the centre of European politics would undoubtedly have been the House of Commons. So we thought, 'Why not finish the film in the political seat of Britain?'[1]

The film was the first in a series of films financed by Tony Williams at the

"You have to go back in time to tell a story that doesn't have to face '70s problems", said Williams in 1978. "What people are nostalgic for isn't necessarily any particular period, but the happier values that are missing today."[2]

Williams defended the idea of adapting a previously adapted novel:

The old films suffer technically against today's. The pace of modern films is much faster. The style of acting is different. Those old actors were marvelous, but if you consult the man in the street, he's more interested in seeing a current artist than someone who's been dead for years.^[2]

A replica of the clock was built at

A soundtrack album was released on United Artists Records. In addition to cues from the film, Ed Welch composed The Thirty Nine Steps Concerto, an extended piece for piano and orchestra in a vein similar to Richard Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto. Christopher Headington was the soloist, with the Rank Studio Orchestra conducted by the composer. A CD release was made available for the first time by Quartet Records in January 2022.^[9]

Release

The film was one of the most popular movies of 1979 at the British box office.^[10] Sharp says he was told the film was the most financially successful of all the movies from Rank's revived production slate under Tony Williams.^[6] In the UK it had a distributor's gross of £364,434.^[11]

Greg Smith said that John Buchan's son, Lord Tweedsmuir, was pleased the film used more of his father's book, and that he thought his father would have liked the Big Ben ending.^[1]

Filmink argued the film was "a more successful remake" than the 1959 version "because it departs even further from the Hitchcock version (although there’s a North by Northwest homage). It’s not as good as the 1935 film, but it’s fun and has a reason to exist."^[12]

References