The 39 Steps *** (1959, Kenneth More, Taina Elg, Brenda de Banzie, Sidney James, Reginald Beckwith, James Hayter, Barry Jones, Faith Brook, Duncan Lamont) – Classic Movie Review 4,490

Kenneth More does nicely in a smooth turn in the star part of Richard Hannay in director Ralph Thomas’s careful 1959 second screen version of John Buchan’s classic 1915 espionage novel The 39 Steps. Taina Elg provides the love interest for Hannay.

Kenneth More does nicely in a smooth turn in the star part of Richard Hannay in director Ralph Thomas’s careful 1959 second screen version of John Buchan’s classic 1915 espionage novel The 39 Steps. Hannay goes on the run after witnessing a hit-and-run accident involving a woman pushing a pram containing a gun instead of a baby.

The film turns out to be a surprisingly similar unofficial remake of the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock classic The 39 Steps, made professionally well, though without its special flair. A number of the 1959 film’s scenes are not from the novel at all but based on Hitchcock’s film, including the music hall opening, the escape on the Forth Bridge and the addition of a female love interest for Hannay. However, given that the Hitchcock abandoned most of a novel he claimed to love, it is good just for variety that there are a few extra portions of John Buchan’s original used for Frank Harvey’s script this time.

Director Ralph Thomas brings a lot of old-style, traditional craftsmanship to the film and uses his Scottish locations to considerable effect, with extensive location shooting, and with Ernest Steward’s Eastmancolor photography a great help (so it is the first colour version of Buchan’s story).

More makes a thoroughly likeable, sympathetic hero, but he does not give the extra dimension to the role of being so terribly troubled as his predecessor Robert Donat.

Taina Elg would normally be judged as OK as the female co-star, the added-on love interest for Hannay, if Madeleine Carroll had not been so unforgettably stunning in the original role. Elg plays Miss Fisher, a netball coach at a boarding school for girls and Richard Hannay is forced to pretend they are lovers to avoid the pursuing police detectives.

Madeleine Carroll played Pamela, the sole occupant of another compartment of the train Hannay is on from Edinburgh, kissing her when he sees police searching the train for him.

But there are several bits of helpful, frantic scene-stealing from actors normally in comedy films – Sidney James as Percy, Reginald Beckwith as Lumsden, Leslie Dwyer as milkman and James Hayter as Mr Memory among them – to liven it up.

By and large, it is a very passable entertainment.

It marks the film debut of the much-loved and distinguished prolific British character actor Peter Vaughan, already aged 36, uncredited as the second police constable on the train.

Peter Vaughan died on 6 December 6 2016, aged 93.

Also in the cast are Brenda de Banzie, Barry Jones, Faith Brook, Duncan Lamont, Michael Goodliffe, Jameson Clark, Andrew Cruickshank, Leslie Dwyer, Betty Henderson, Brian Oulton, David Davies, John Harvey, Anthony Sagar, Bruce Seton, Marianne Stone, Michael Brennan, Jeremy Hawke, Sam Kydd, Avice Landone, William Mervyn, John Richardson, Bill Simpson, Harry Towb, and John Snagge.

It was remade again in 1979 with Robert Powell as The Thirty-Nine Steps and as a BBC TV movie in 2008 with Rupert Penry-Jones as Hannay.

Taina Elg (9 March 1930 – 15 May 2025)

Finnish-American actress and dancer Taina Elg (9 March 1930 – 15 May 2025) is a double  Golden Globe winner. She won the Golden Globe for the Foreign Newcomer Award – Female in 1957, and the Golden Globe in 1958 for Best Motion Picture Actress – Musical/ Comedy for her performance in Les Girls, tying with her co-star, Kay Kendall.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4,490

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