Matthew Kresal Remakes can be hard to judge, especially if the remake in question is of something regarded as a classic. The 1959 version of The 39 Steps is one such example. It is a remake of the 1935 film that was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and well as being the second of four film versions of the 1915 John Buchan novel. Even without trying to compare it to the Hitchcock film, how well of a film is it? The casting is rather good for the most part. Kenneth More, the quintessential British leading man of the 1950s, takes on the role of Richard Hannay. This Hannay is a very different character from the Hitchcock film in that he's know a British diplomat and quite a bit older. In that case More is perfect casting. More plays the role perfectly as he balances both the thriller and the humor aspects of the character which suits the film well. More's performance is the heart and soul of the film and the film works in large part because of him.The rest of the cast does well. They range from Faith Brook as the woman who sets things in motion, Barry Jones as the mysterious Professor Logan, Brenda De Banzie as Nellie Lumsden and the various actors playing the various Scottish eccentrics that Hannay bumps into on his journey through Scotland. That said the cast isn't perfect.If there's a big miscasting in the film it is Taina Elg as the film's leading lady Fisher. Elg's performance is rather dull to say the least as she shares no chemistry with More whatsoever. Elg also lacks believability thanks to her very shaky accent that puts her far outside the British isles. As a result, Elg is a less then successful replacement for Madeleine Carroll from the Hitchcock film.The production values of the film are good as well. By the time of this version, film-making had changed to allow filming outside the walls of a studio set which means this film doesn't have the staged feeling apparent in the Hitchcock version. There are some beautiful shots of the Scottish countryside throughout the film. The production design of the film is splendid as well though one wonders if Hannay, having just returned from a long time posting overseas, would have a flat as furnished as the one seen in the film. There's also some special effects as well including better then average back projection that makes the train/bridge sequence all the more effective. Sadly the film's score by composer Clifton Parker undermines the film more then helps by over-emphasizing the humor of the film. Overall though the production values serve the film well.Which in a way brings us to the Frank Harvey script and the direction of Ralph Thomas. The film is less an adaptation of the original novel so much as an updated remake of the 1935 Hitchcock film. If you've seen the Hitchcock film you'll recognize much of the dialogue and incidents that occur through the film. This version in many respects is simply an updating of the story to the Cold War era while staying largely faithful to the film made nearly 25 years before. Where it differs from the original heavily is the emphasis of Thomas on inserting humor into the film. Sometimes the humor works (such as the start of the film in Regent's Park) but for the most part it undermines the tension (such as during the speech that Hannay has to give due to a case for mistaken identity which, despite More's best efforts, fails). As a result the film is a mixed bag as it tries to juggle tension and humor and often not succeeding.How does this second version of The 39 Steps hold up? It depends how you look at it. If you've seen the original Hitchcock film then there will likely be some disappointments due to a bit of miscasting and an over emphasis on humor. Overall though, the film has its own merits including Kenneth More's fine performance as Hannay and some good production values. The 1959 version of The 39 Steps then is a good film in its own right but not as good as the Hitchcock film that proceeded it.

TheLittleSongbird As far as remakes go, this is not a bad one. It is infinitely better than the dreadful remake to Psycho, which quite frankly was pointless and was inferior in every possible way to the chilling (and traumatising) original. I will say right now I do prefer the Hitchcock film, which was really entertaining, suspenseful, well made and had believable chemistry between Robert Donat and Madeleine Caroll despite the deviations from the book. Plus it was Hitchcock, who directs while putting a lot of his fashioned touches that instantly made his directorial style recognisable.This remake has its flaws, but there are worse remakes out there (ie.Psycho, Wicker Man). The pacing here is a tad sluggish, there are one or two drawn out scenes that drag a bit. Also Taina Elg looks rather uncomfortable here, no denying she is a lovely lady, but her chemistry with Kenneth More isn't always there. Plus I also felt the direction from Ralph Thomas was on the pedestrian side. I also felt the scripting on occasions lacked the wit and suspense that made the Hitchcock film so memorable.Flaws aside, the plot is still good and intriguing enough, and so is the music which is quite stirring and the stylish camera work. Kenneth More, while he has acted better, is still very likable in the lead role of Richard Hannay, and the location shots of London are excellent, plus the Scottish scenery is stunning. The lighting is okay, could've been brighter in places but it was not distractingly bad or anything. Overall, this is a decent remake, but as I have accentuated many times, the Hitchcock film will always be better, no matter how much it is removed from the source material. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Robert J. Maxwell A zippy and enjoyable version of John Buchan's novel, far lighter in tone that Hitchcock's. The versions differ in more than tone. In Hitchcock's film, Hannay undergoes different sorts of divagations and dangers than he does here, in Ralph Thomas's film. There's nothing wrong with that. Neither film is a close adaptation of Buchan's book. If I remember, Hanny has a heck of a long time getting from place to place in the novel, at one point having to take a job as a ditch digger.The color in the more recent film is easier on the eyes but adds a cheery note to the proceedings too, absent 1935's stark shadows. And there has been a good deal of location shooting in London and Scotland, so the one-lane gravel highland roads are no longer clogged with sheep and cloaked with fog, no longer so claustrophobic. Nor is Kenneth More what we usually think of as a brutishly dramatic actor. Like the earlier Robert Donat he seems like a rather likable guy, and there isn't a moment when we feel he's in fear for his life. Taina Elg has a plain-vanilla pretty face, suggestive of a high-school prom queen. This isn't an especially good thing, let's face facts. But her plump-lipped youthfulness, the hint of a Khalka Mongol in her Finnish eyes, and the fact that we know she is a ballerina adds a certain frisson of the exotic. What normal man wouldn't want to have a struggle with her in the back seat, as Kenneth More does? Thomas's film is not nearly as stark as Hitchcock's. It's almost sumptuous. Instead of that depressing encounter with the pecuniary Scottish farmer and his deprived wife, there is an abundance of Brenda de Banzie who, with the consent of her meek husband, offers Moore much more than a box bed and a meal of "the herring." And there is nothing like the scene between Anne Robinson and Robert Donat in Donat's first-floor flat, when she asks for something to eat and Donat prepares a huge slab of haddock in a frying pan. No veggies, no wine, no nothing. As he stands over the stove, Donat wears a heavy overcoat with its vast collar turned up around his ears, a cigarette in his mouth, the ashes perhaps filtering down into the frying fish. The place looks sterile, discomfiting, and cold as hell. More's flat, on the other hand, is colorfully decorated with alien objects from his travels around the world. The episode on the Forth Bridge is almost a duplicate of the original.In one scene, though, Thomas and his writers out-do Hitchcock and his. More, like Donat, accidentally stumbles onto a stage and is forced to improvise a speech. In the original, it involved some palaver about local politics. Here, it is a lecture on "Woods and Wayside" in a girls' school, with the emphasis on a plant called the spleenwort. More stumbles a bit at first, chuckling over his own ineptitude, then tells a joke about "a Scotsman, an Englishman, and an Irishman." We only get to hear the punch line that suggests the story was slightly off color. The girls must have loved it because they're all giggling. Then More really gets into his pitch. He once had a parrot, he claims, that was allergic to spleenwort. "You had only to open a spleenwort in front of him for him to show his disgust. And I think we can all agree that there is nothing less pleasant than a disgusted parrot." As he's dragged from the lectern, More shouts out a summary of his lecture -- "Please, girls, don't fall by the wayside. And above all, stay out of the woods!" I smiled at Donat's impromptu speech but I laughed out loud through More's.As I say, it's not nearly as dark as Hitchcock's vision. This is strictly a comedy with thriller undertones, rather than the other way around. You'll probably enjoy it.

Bregelad 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.