Film review: The 39 Steps (1959)

No, not that 39 Steps (the 1935 Hitchcock one).  No, not that one either (the 70s one with Robert Powell that was surprisingly successful and I have a memory of having seen in the cinema).  This one is smack dab in the middle, and rather an interesting and fun little affair.  It seems to hew very closely to the Hitchcock version (I have read the Buchan book at one point and I don't remember any woman being handcuffed to Hannay), with a couple of small changes.  As is obligatory for British films between the 40s and the 70s, it has Sid James in a small role, 

and (delightfully) it has Joan Hickson (the Platonic Ideal of Miss Marple) playing very much against type as a dotty schoolmistress.  

But Hannay is the rather stocky (think Richard Attenborough proportions) Kenneth More, who doesn't really cut the heroic figure that Robert Donat does, but has a very nice line in dry line delivery and wry amusement (and smokes a mean pipe).  

What this film has going for it over the Hitchcock version is real location filming, particularly in Scotland.  

The Hitchcock one has very good backdrops, but it's sort of obvious that it's set-bound, whereas in this one we are out and about in fantastic Scottish scenery and small towns.  

There are a couple of plot changes from the 1935 one: instead of the shepherd's cottage (John Laurie and Peggy Ashcroft) Hannay hides out at a place run by an oversexed fake medium and her happily cuckolded doting husband (sidenote: I was surprised at the multiple casual sexual allusions, and the scene where the heroine takes off her wet stockings while still handcuffed to Hannay, which is borderline erotic - I guess my view of 50s British cinema was a bit blinkered), and instead of being mistaken for a political candidate and giving a rousing political speech at a town hall, Hannay is mistaken for a visiting professor and gives a meandering speech about the spleenwort to a girls' school.  Our heroine, 

whom, as in 1935, we first meet while heading north on the train, and who gives him up to the police so he has to jump out, is a teacher and netball coach at said school (where Joan Hickson is an older teacher).  I don't know if she's supposed to be English (her students call her Miss Fisher, and Hannay calls her "Fishpots"), but she's played by Finnish actress Taina Elg and her accent is pretty thick.  However, she's a very appealing performer, and the back and forth with Hannay is fun to watch.  

Everything's set in the 50s too, which leaves the sinister adversaries rather unclear.  Presumably the USSR, but it's never stated.  Otherwise, just as in 1935 Mr. Memory plays a key (and ultimately tragic) role, and the head honcho, who is for some reason a beloved uncle figure living in a sprawling Scottish estate, is missing a bit of a finger.  

And the 39 Steps are a huge McGuffin, mentioned briefly in passing at the end.  At least in the 1970s one they had them be the stairs inside the tower of Big Ben, so the title looked important.

Anyway, an enjoyable romp, in glorious color and lovely scenery.  You get to see Kenneth More's fat little calves as he toils away on a bicycle (in very unflattering shorts), too.