This was an hour and a half of my life I'm never going to get back. The first thrill-free version of The 39 Steps. No hanging from Big Ben, no daring escape on the Forth Bridge (give it credit he does dangle from a 12 foot fire escape down a London back alley for a bit), no tense scene with the Memory Man, and no sparkling dialogue. Instead we get something that is so clod-hoppingly right on I'm convinced it must have been written by Harriet Harman under a pseudonym. Hannay switches from resourceful well-intentioned everyman to sexist buffoon to quavering wimp to suit the whims of the scriptwriter as his suffragette sidekick performs all the heroics. A lame rip-off of the crop duster sequence from North By Northwest demonstrates the level of imagination on offer. The scenery was quite nice.
Review of The 39 Steps
