gridoon2024 Review of The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (1959)

Overly familiar but sometimes thrilling and funny

[6/10 · 22 January 2024]

This first remake of Alfred Hitchcock's "The 39 Steps" begins well, with Faith Brook as an attractive "older woman" nanny-cum-secret-agent! But she disappears too soon, and even if you haven't seen the original, the movie becomes an overly familiar "wrong-man-on-the-run" yarn: the sequences where Kenneth More is alone and chased by the police are, frankly, dull. But the film does have its share of thrills and laughs, especially when Taina Elg enters the picture and the two get eventually handcuffed together (most amusing bit: the spleenwort lecture). The ending, though, is disappointingly mild: the titular 39 steps are only fleetingly explained in a single sentence. **1/2 out of 4.