John Buchan was in bed, suffering from a duodenal ulcer when he wrote the book that changed my life. And he later described it as a “shocker”. Not in the sense that we take that to mean, but Buchan used “shocker” to refer to works that contained events that were very unlikely to really happen – and that readers were only just able to believe in.
And The 39 Steps, as this work became, along with its hero, Richard Hannay, was a success and has influenced many a film adaptation (to date, 3, with one more in the pipeline), as well as a spin-off drama series on ITV in the late 1980s.
I need to nail my colours to the mast here. I don’t like the 1935 Hitchcock version very much. As a film, its well-constructed, and well made – but its not the story Buchan wrote and I fell in love with.
The Hitchcock film was re-made in colour in 1959, starring Kenneth More, and was an upgrade of the original, but essentially the same, with the same altered story.
The 1979 film starring Robert Powell was far more to my taste, but I still can’t stand the ridiculous dangling-off-of-Big-Ben ending that has become so famous.
I discovered the novel at the age of 14. We’d been forced to move house to an area I didn’t like and away from all my friends – my bus ride to school was now two buses and was long and torturous. The Christmas coming up didn’t seem to be too promising to me then. And when I wandered into a little bookshop in Orpington (which has long since gone), I had no idea what would happen when I picked up a small book from the Wordsworth Classics display. I’d only looked at that because they were all just £1 each, too.
On Christmas day, we travelled to my nan and grandad’s house near Croydon. I had the book with me – not because I didn’t get anything nice for Christmas, or because I was expecting to be bored. But I had it because for once, I’d read something that intrigued me from the start. That first chapter – read in slight desperation because I wanted to go to sleep on Christmas Eve – had had my mind whirring ever since I’d woken up. But until that car journey, there’d been too much going on to read – there’d been church, and then a visit to my other nan and granddad’s… But now I could see how it would continue.
And The 39 Steps, as this work became, along with its hero, Richard Hannay, was a success and has influenced many a film adaptation (to date, 3, with one more in the pipeline), as well as a spin-off drama series on ITV in the late 1980s.
I need to nail my colours to the mast here. I don’t like the 1935 Hitchcock version very much. As a film, its well-constructed, and well made – but its not the story Buchan wrote and I fell in love with.
The Hitchcock film was re-made in colour in 1959, starring Kenneth More, and was an upgrade of the original, but essentially the same, with the same altered story.
The 1979 film starring Robert Powell was far more to my taste, but I still can’t stand the ridiculous dangling-off-of-Big-Ben ending that has become so famous.
I discovered the novel at the age of 14. We’d been forced to move house to an area I didn’t like and away from all my friends – my bus ride to school was now two buses and was long and torturous. The Christmas coming up didn’t seem to be too promising to me then. And when I wandered into a little bookshop in Orpington (which has long since gone), I had no idea what would happen when I picked up a small book from the Wordsworth Classics display. I’d only looked at that because they were all just £1 each, too.
On Christmas day, we travelled to my nan and grandad’s house near Croydon. I had the book with me – not because I didn’t get anything nice for Christmas, or because I was expecting to be bored. But I had it because for once, I’d read something that intrigued me from the start. That first chapter – read in slight desperation because I wanted to go to sleep on Christmas Eve – had had my mind whirring ever since I’d woken up. But until that car journey, there’d been too much going on to read – there’d been church, and then a visit to my other nan and granddad’s… But now I could see how it would continue.
I read the rest of the book between then and the end of the evening. I’ve not read many books within 24 hours, and this was the first. I read it again over the next week. I was enthralled. This was escapism as it was intended. I didn’t care one jot what was going on elsewhere – I was in a world of espionage and treason, where you couldn’t trust anyone completely. Brilliant. Just what I needed.
So that’s basically why I don’t like the Hitchcock film – because its nothing like the book. I was so excited when I managed to get hold of a copy of the film… and so disappointed when I watched it. The ending of the book is so Holmesian in its reasoning, so suspenseful – and its totally changed.
It’s a very good film, I concede, but its not the film I want it to be – the whole plot is altered substantially when The 39 Steps are changed to be the name of an organisation rather than what the book says it is. And even more when a love interest is introduced. The importance of the Memory Man character to the film is very clever, and well-worked, but it all seemed rather less than only just believable to me.
I only really mention this stuff because I read these articles today:
BBC to remake Buchan classic
Austen? Buchan? It's time for more unusual adaptations
I’ve been waiting for the BBC to do this. It’s been my dream for roughly 15 years to write a new version, and I am obviously only hurt because the BBC didn’t ask me to do it… But Rupert Penry-Jones is a great casting choice for Richard Hannay. Its being written by Lizzie Mickery too (who, amongst other things, co-wrote the marvellous The State Within), and the BBC have been at pains to say that although it’s an adventure first written and set in the first years of the twentieth century, it will be worthy of a Bond of a Bourne story.
I’m in two minds about that. On the one hand, it’s a brilliant idea. But on the other, I’m nervous of the implication that it could be somewhat more, shall we say, modern. When trying to play up to the Hollywood standard, TV adaptations generally simply put in more CGI and explosions. I hope this won’t happen here. It looks promising, but I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed!
