Friday Night Movie, number 37 – The 39 Steps.

There have been a few versions both on stage and on screen of John Buchan’s rip roaring yarn about a foreign government’s espionage plot against Britain. Howver, this version from 1935, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Robert Donat, is the one that I prefer.

Robert Donat plays the hero Richard Hannay with a much more ‘caddish’ air than the versions starring Kenneth More or Robert Powell. The chase, escape and keeping ahead of the baddies scenes are excellently done and it is a film that grips from beginning to end. It was a story originally published as a serial in a magazine and I can well imagine that readers would have been eagerly anticipating the next episodes to see how Richard Hannay manages to deal with spies, traitors, suspicious guest house landlords and pursuers bent on finding Hannay who has also been unjustly accused of a murder.

It was a few years since I watched this Hitchock version and it was a great pleasure to see it available on YouTube.

I hope that you enjoy this film as much as I have done.