solar

I understand that there's going to be another remake of the 39 steps next year - to make four versions!! (1935,1959,1978,2006)
It'll be directed by Robert Town so I guess it's a US project.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001801/

I wonder what the meaning of the '39 steps' will be this time!
Wasn't it a spy ring in the origional book?

I should read it and find out!

DB7

Weren't they 39 harbour steps used by enemy agents to flee the country?

Freddy

The Thirty-Nine Steps
By John Buchan

CHAPTER TEN
Various Parties Converging on the Sea


A pink and blue June morning found me at Bradgate looking from the Griffin Hotel over a smooth sea to the lightship on the Cock sands which seemed the size of a bell-buoy. A couple of miles farther south and much nearer the shore a small destroyer was anchored. Scaife, MacGillivray's man, who had been in the Navy, knew the boat, and told me her name and her commander's, so I sent off a wire to Sir Walter.

After breakfast Scaife got from a house-agent a key for the gates of the staircases on the Ruff. I walked with him along the sands, and sat down in a nook of the cliffs while he investigated the half- dozen of them. I didn't want to be seen, but the place at this hour was quite deserted, and all the time I was on that beach I saw nothing but the sea-gulls.

It took him more than an hour to do the job, and when I saw him coming towards me, conning a bit of paper, I can tell you my heart was in my mouth. Everything depended, you see, on my guess proving right.

He read aloud the number of steps in the different stairs. 'Thirty- four, thirty-five, thirty-nine, forty-two, forty-seven,' and 'twenty- one' where the cliffs grew lower. I almost got up and shouted.

We hurried back to the town and sent a wire to MacGillivray. I wanted half a dozen men, and I directed them to divide themselves among different specified hotels. Then Scaife set out to prospect the house at the head of the thirty-nine steps.


Nice one DB7 [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbup1.gif[/img]

The book itself is a good read, 102 pages, very boys own adventure, some terms which would offend the pc brigade and no women involved.
Strange though geographically the names are fiction, with Bradgate being in the Midlands and [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blushing.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blushing.gif[/img] prevented me from putting Cock on the search engine.

Freddy

The world wags on.

Clinton Morgan

What he might say in future interviews.
" I'm well aware that the Hitchcock version is regarded as a classic but when you look at it today it has dated and creaks a bit...blah, blah, blah...blah de bloody blah......."

Gibbie

Creaks a bit...it's the cadence of the period. No MTV speed there.

solar

Thanks a lot for that.. I didn't realise that you could get it off the web
Great!!!

http://arthursclassicnovels.com/arth...n/39stp10.html

Guess what I'll be reading this afternoon!

I'll be looking forward to the 3rd remake but I hope they won't just update the storyline- I hope it's a really original piece of cinema
It would be nice it if were still based in the UK as well- there was some good scenary in the '78 version.

Two weeks ago I went the place where the railway sceans were filmed- on the severn valley railway in Worcestershire. You can still take the steam train over the bridge where Hanny pulls the communications cord and escapes from the Police.
You don't really appreciate the bridge from the train though... you have to view it from the bank [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsup.gif[/img]
No idea where '35 version was filmed...

Rob Compton

Wasn't the bridge in the 1930's version the Forth Railway Bridge?

Couple of other comments:

The 39 steps being a spy ring was a device used by Hitchcock's scriptwriters.

I agree that the Buchan novel is well worth reading - the same cannot be said, I am afraid, of the sequel Hannay book (or books? I'm at work at present and can't check how many or their titles

I still think the Hitchcock version is by far the best.

rgds
Rob

solar

Yes I agree with that!

THERE were sequels??
I didn't know that!! Were they made into films??

Hugo

The Thirty-Nine Steps written in 1915 was the first in a series of five novels by John Buchan featuring the character Richard Hannay.
The others were Greenmantle (1916), Mr Standfast (1918), The Three Hostages (1924) and Island Of Sheep. I don't think that any of the others were filmed.
A few years ago Penguin Books brought out an ominbus edition containing all five but I don't know if it still available.

samkydd

If the yanks are making it they'll probably call it the 40 Steps, because "The 39 steaheps is just soh naht at even nurmbah!" The Forth Bridge will be replaced with Tower Bridge (which they'll caption with "London Bridge"), in case two number sounding words in one film confuses the audience too much, and with Tower Bridge everyone will know it's Scotland (which is of course on the outskirts of London)! Hannay's name will be changed in case people thing they're calling him "Honey", so he'll be something like Zeke Harley. The baddie with half a finger will be enhanced by having just one eye (a black patch of course) and just half one arm with a false one fitted with gadgets and a black leather glove dressed in arab garb. The spy ring will be of course arab terrorists, the steps refering to the number of steps leading up to the baddie's lair which inevitably will be a mosque somewhere near Fort William! Just for good measure the Loch Ness monster will appear as well to rescue Zeke from being fed by henchmen to the vicious wild haggis roaming the heather! Can't wait 'til it's made!!!!

"...the chairman of Littlewoods stores made a Keynote speech!"

Steve Crook

And of course they don't need to do it on location because everyone now acknowledges that CGI is just as good as reality. Add to that a couple of ZapKill Bazookoids for the hero to carry and that'll do. It doesn't really need a script, just lots of special effects and explosions.

Steve

AndrewLA

One never quite knows about these things, but most of what I've heard and read suggests that Charles Bennett was responsible for virtually all the new material in THE 39 STEPS, especially the significant stuff like Mister Memory, the ring of spies, the heroine, the farmer's wife, etc. Ian Hay contributed only dialogue. Hitch's wife, Alma Reville, shares credit for co-adaptation, but I've never heard that she participated in construction or original ideas. Bennett said in one interview that her work was officially in the area of "continuity," and that her salary was a way of getting more cash into the Hitchcock bank account. He may have been biased, of course. If anyone's read the recent book about Alma, perhaps they can throw some light on her contribution to THE 39 STEPS...

smudge

Robert Powell went on to play Hannay in a TV series for ITV. Whether those shows were derived from the sequels, I don't recall...

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

smudge

"Cadence of the period...."

I like that phrase Gibbie !

I usually have to take AGES convincing no-knowledge 'bar-room' critics of British film-making to put the films into the context of their time, but this is so much more succinct.

Mind you, MOST of that time is spent explaining what 'context' is, so goodness only knows how long it'll take to explain cadence to them....

SMUDGE

Welcome to my house. Enter freely, and of your own will...

Hugo

I had quite forgotten about the TV series HANNAY, shown on ITV in 1988/89. There is a complete episode guide on tvtome.com - 2 series 13 episodes but it does not say whether any were based on the John Buchan sequels, I suspect not.
It sounds very appealing though, surely a prime candidate for a DVD box-set release.