The 39 Steps

The 39 Steps (2008)

Richard Hannay, a mining engineer on holiday from the African colonies, finds London socialite life terribly dull. Yet it's more than he bargained for when a secret agent bursts into his room and entrusts him with a coded notebook, concerning the impending start of World War I. In no time both German agents and the British law are chasing him, ruthlessly coveting the Roman numerals code, which Hannay believes he must personally crack.

Date of release
2008-12-28
TMDB
6.5 / 10 (28)
Runtime
1h 30m
Genres
Thriller, Mystery, Adventure, TV Movie
Director
James Hawes

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Thirty-nine Steps
  • Filmed in: Edinburgh

The 39 Steps is a 2008 British television adventure film, an adaptation of the 1915 John Buchan novel The Thirty-Nine Steps produced by the BBC. It was written by Lizzie Mickery, directed by James Hawes, and filmed on location in Scotland, starring Rupert Penry-Jones, Lydia Leonard, David Haig, Eddie Marsan, and Patrick Malahide. Following three screen versions of the novel and the 1952 and 1977 television adaptations of The Three Hostages, Penry-Jones became the sixth actor to portray Hannay on screen. This adaptation is set on the eve of the First World War and sees mining engineer Richard Hannay caught up in an espionage conspiracy following the death of a British spy in his flat.

Production

Announced by the BBC in August 2008, filming began in September 2008 for a first broadcast at Christmas. Penry-Jones, who had previously worked on the spy drama Spooks, took the lead role, with the screenplay written by Lizzie Mickery (co-writer of the dramas The State Within and Messiah), produced by Lynn Horsford (Boy A, The Mark of Cain) and directed by James Hawes (Fanny Hill, Merlin, Doctor Who).

At the time of the announcement, Horsford said: "With this adaptation we wanted to stay faithful to the spirit and period of the book, but asked the writer Lizzie to feel free to re-imagine it for a modern audience more familiar with James Bond and Jason Bourne." The production was set around the eve of the First World War and retained other elements from the book, including having the 39 steps refer to steps to a departure point, but according t…

Penry-Jones read the book and saw the other versions of the film, but said that Hitchcock's 1959 film North by Northwest was "more of a template for me than any version of The 39 Steps". Explaining why he took on the part, he said to Tim Oglethorpe of the Daily Record:

Part of the appeal was the cars, I'm a bit of a buff ... And I said – jokingly, of course – that I wouldn't be in The 39 Steps unless the action included the famous chase scene in which Hannay is pursued by a biplane. I've always wanted to be chased by a plane like Cary Grant in the movie North by Northwest and I was just delighted when it happened in our version of Steps.

Filming took place on location in Scotland. Locations used included the area around West Register Street in Edinburgh for the London scenes at the start of the film, Bo'ness railway station, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum for the interior scenes of St Pancras railway station, Glasgow City Chambers, Culross, Stirling Castle, Dumbarton Castle, the highlands of Argyll, and Loch Katrine for the final confrontation.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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