The Thirty Nine Steps (1978 film)

In 1914, German spies are everywhere in London. After a spate of assassinations of important British politicians, a retired British intelligence officer, Colonel Scudder, realises his life and his mysterious black notebook are in danger. He turns to Richard Hannay, a mining engineer who is visiting Britain for a short time before returning to South Africa, who happens to be staying in a flat in the same building. Scudder tells Hannay of a plot by Prussian (German) 'sleeper' agents, who are planning to precipitate a war against the Triple Entente powers by assassinating the Greek prime minister visiting the UK.

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 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 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 understand. 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 to jail. During their interrogation of Hannay, they ask what he knows of the "Thirty Nine Steps". The Prussians allow him to escape in the hope he will 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 to Scotland to find the real notebook. Hannay flees to Scotland on a train, but he is forced to make a daredevil escape on a bridge when the police board.

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

On the Scottish moors Hannay, claiming to be on the run as part of a wager, meets Alex Mackenzie and her fiance, David Hamilton. On the run again, Hannay has to pose as a Liberal Party orator and ad lib a speech at an election husting. He indicates the identity of the Prussian agents to Alex Mackenzie and David Hamilton and with their help Scudder's book is found, but Hamilton is killed by the Prussians. The coded information is partly deciphered and the true plans of the Prussian agents are revealed. The agents intend to murder the visiting Greek Prime Minister by planting a bomb in parliament, thus leading to unrest in the Balkans and causing a world war. The "Thirty Nine Steps" refers to the number of stairs in the clock tower of Big Ben (from "Lauderdale Door to the clock itself").

When the police 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 at 11.45am. To give the police more time, Hannay breaks the glass of the clock-face, climbs out onto the face of the clock and physically stops the minute hand as it moves towards the figure IX. By hanging from the end of the minute hand, Hannay manages to jam the clock at 11.44am long enough for the police to break into the clock room where they kill the remaining spies and deactivate the bomb. The clock mechanism stops working and the clock's minute hand falls into a vertical position, but Hannay hangs on and one of the officers saves him with a looped rope. Lomas recognises a River Police uniform and at the docks Hannay and other officers capture Appleton, who had also stolen details of the deployment of all Royal Navy ships.

Sir Edmund Appleton is convicted of treason and Richard Hannay is declared a hero for helping Britain gain valuable time to prepare for the Great War. In the closing shot, Hannay is shown walking arm in arm with Alex Mackenzie.

Hannay (Powell) hanging from Big Ben during the film's denouement. The scene was a departure from Buchan's novel, but was added because the Houses of Parliament represented the centre of British power in 1914.

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 Jesus of Nazareth. The script did add a romantic interest for Hannay, played by Karen Dotrice. "You can't make a movie without women", said Smith. "You can't go through life without women."[1]

The film added a new climax with Hannay climbing on to Big Ben. Smith:

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 Rank Organisation which was (temporarily as it turned out) increasing its film production in the late '70s.[7]

"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 Pinewood Studios. Powell recalls that although in a controlled environment, he was still hanging at a significant height above the studio floor.[8] The idea of Hannay dangling from the hands of Big Ben came in part from a stunt performed by Harold Lloyd in the silent comedy classic Safety Last (1923). The privately owned Severn Valley Railway loaned the film a steam engine, together with rolling stock and a section of track, for shooting.[1]

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]

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]

• The Thirty Nine Steps at IMDb
• The Thirty Nine Steps at the TCM Movie Database
• The Thirty Nine Steps at AllMovie
• The Thirty Nine Steps at the British Board of Film Classification
• The Thirty Nine Steps at the British Film Institute