Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2782 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-02-02
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Synopsis
Based on the beloved spy thriller by John Buchan, and first brought to the screen in 1935 by Alfred Hitchcock, THE 39 STEPS is a timeless tale of action, intrigue, romance and suspense. This television adaptation stars Rupert Penry Jones (BURN UP, SPOOKS) as Richard Hannay, an ordinary man caught up in extraordinary events. As the First World War looms, Hannay returns from Africa to London, where he meets a man claiming to be a British spy. The man is killed in Hannay's apartment and he immediately finds himself on the run, burdened with the charge for his murder and the dangerous knowledge of his mission.

This lavish version attempts to stay faithful to the 1915 book, whilst injecting a more contemporary energy into the dramatic action sequences. The result is an edge-of-your-seat adventure with period charm and sophistication.

Customer Reviews

Storming Steps!
Right, before I start with these ramblings of a diseased mind, let me put my cards on the table from the beginning. I know there are many people who seem to have a terrible down on Rupert Penry-Jones for whatever reason and that's fair enough. Each to their own preference.
But I like his work and when I heard The 39 Steps was going to be on, I looked forward to it immensely. I've seen all the other versions and read the book (and other Buchan stories) and as far as I can tell, there has never been a "faithful" rendition of this work because, again as far as I can tell, it wouldn't work visually/dramatically. Every director/adapter has changed or added something so I have no trouble with that as a concept. I will say right now that I have no idea what was happening with the ending of this version or what it all meant or how it came about but in the great scheme of things, I can live with that.
I really, really enjoyed this. I thought it was light-hearted, entertaining, captured the spirit of the period without getting bogged down in pedantic detail and it fairly zipped along. I don't think there's any point in castigating it for not being something else. It was a new version with its own contemporary axes to grind/boxes to tick and on that basis, it worked like a charm for me.
And speaking of charm, as I said, I like Rupert Penry-Jones, I think he is grossly under-rated as an actor and here, he was just perfectly cast and wonderfully skilled in a role almost tailor-made for someone with a light touch and a bit of dash about him.
I don't know where people get the idea RPJ is wooden and can't do comedy-his way of commenting with a straight face and a twinkle in his eye is just lovely. Too subtle for some, maybe. And charm? Even when the character was making a klutz of himself he had buckets of charm. The way he laughed at himself and the situation when he was in the train with the ventriloquist; the smile at the maid who drew the police off; the way he took the measure of Scudder and made him breakfast; the expression on his face during the public meeting; the grin as he ran through the kitchen bumping into the maids and hurling the laundry about; the scenes with Victoria when they were arguing completely unreasonably with each other and in the car after she'd told him she was a spy AND a suffragette; the lovely, lovely line about wooing, flowers, dinner and a passionate debate about the rights of women (or however he put it!), going from serious intent to joy and laughter in one short speech.
Too many to count. As to the portrayal of the character of Richard Hannay, it seemed to me truer to the concept of the ordinary man caught up in great events than many others have been.
He was presented right from the start as a man looking for something, a man uncertain of his place in the world who was thrown into a situation beyond his control but who did his best, who used what experience and skills he had acquired in life to get himself out of trouble. But he was also a fallible human being who did get out of his depth and who didn't have the perfect answer to everything.
People either want an all-knowing, superman-type, one-bound-and-he-was-free hero or they don't. That doesn't make any alternative a wimp or a wet. Hannay here was a clever, talented and resourceful person but also bewildered, confused and scared.
I wasn't mad about the addition of the Victoria character but she struck me as far more believable and attractive than any of the introduced love interests that went before. Madeleine Carroll was gorgeous but passive (a stock Hitchcock heroine, quelle surprise!) and the others are just forgettable. (I might be making this up myself but I seem to remember from a million years ago reading in some of the other Buchan stories that Hannay's wife Mary was some kind of spy or government employee when he met her which might prove to be a real Buchan-based inspiration for the Victoria character rather than a pure invention. But I am quite prepared to be proved absolutely deluded and wrong! And it will make me read the stories again to find out.).
I liked the notion that they were both prejudiced and opinionated (a nod to some of the now unacceptable, though of-their-time, opinions stated in Buchan's original) but that they came round to each other as they saw what the other was capable of-he saw that a woman could be practical, intelligent and resourceful and she saw that a man could be a gentleman and trustworthy and lose the patronising veneer of the times when confronted with a different kind of person and a different set of events than those he was used to. And their sarky/comic exchanges were a treat!
Very few dramatised or adapted versions exactly follow whatever the original book said and did and I thought for sheer charm and fun and verve this was a great romp, expertly and stylishly performed and beautifully filmed.
Of course it went for shameless audience pleasing and none the worse for that. It obviously succeeded on that score because it got excellent viewing figures and the audience didn't diminish throughout the 90 minutes so it obviously held the interest of the almost 7and a half million who tuned in.
The romance was delightfully schmaltzy and of course it was sexed up. Hitchcock started that, after all, with his handcuffs and stockings. Big wow-sex did not begin in 1963 and in any case, the Edwardian era (OK, I know this was set in 1914 and George V's reign but it didn't disappear overnight!) wasn't exactly noted for its prudishness, from the top of the social scale down. It's a piece of escapist fiction, not an academic commentary on post-Edwardian, pre-World War One social mores.
And this version, to me at least, gave a real feel of the original while getting in a few homages and references to other versions AND to a more modern audience. Too much period perfection and it becomes a spoof and almost a distraction greater than that of finding that the detail isn't exactly as it "should" be.
I loved this and I will love watching it again, so I have ordered the DVD to do just that. And I hope they hire Rupert Penry-Jones to do further Hannays, especially Greenmantle and Mr Standfast. So there!

Read the book, and weep...
I guess this version would be okay if you don't know the story, with some excellent production quality, and some relatively decent casting.

However, anyone who has read the book will be horrified at the ham-fisted adaptation of Buchan's gripping story. I fully agree with some of the other reviewers who would suggest that you watch the Robert Powell version to see something a little more true to the story (apart from the ludicrous ending), with an actor far more believable as Richard Hannay. This was a real disappointment, and thus I cannot recommend it.

This lavish version in no way attempts to stay faithful to the 1915 book
The 39 Steps is a masterpiece of suspense with a carefully thought out plot, some great bits of action and a nail-biting ending as you wonder whether the main protagonist hasn't made some horrible mistake. Unfortunately, whoever adapted this version only thought to include the action and ignored everything else.

To be fair, every other film version of the book has changed the ending - in fact this book is crying out for the 'faithful' adaptation that this version so disappointingly is not - but to film the story and throw away all the suspense just makes it so pointless. Some of the plot changes are frankly incomprehensible. Why change Scudder's death for instance? Ok, so it now becomes clear that Hannay is wanted by the police, but why did Scudder's killers just leave without looking for Scudder's notebook there and then?

This is a careless adaptation let down more than anything else by the publisher's description that it "attempts to stay faithful to the 1915 book."