The 39 Steps (1978)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The 39 steps |
| Original title | The Thirty Nine Steps |
| Country of production | Great Britain |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1978 |
| length | 102 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Don Sharp |
| script | Michael Robson |
| production | Greg Smith |
| music | Ed Welch |
| camera | John Coquillon |
| cut | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| occupation | |
| |
The 39 steps is a British film directed by Don Sharp from 1978. Alternative titles from The Rank Organization production are 39 steps and the race with death .
The third adaptation of the 1915 novel Die Thirty-Nine Steps (original title: The Thirty-Nine Steps ) by John Buchan with Robert Powell as Richard Hannay and other well-known British actors was released in German cinemas on August 24, 1979 by Neue Constantin Film . The first broadcast on television followed on February 13, 1982 on DFF 1 under the title Race with Death .
action
At the beginning of 1914, fears grew in Great Britain that the outbreak of the First World War was imminent. German spies have infiltrated the country and murdered influential politicians to weaken the British government. Colonel Scudder, who, as a former employee of the military intelligence service, tracked the agents, narrowly escaped an attack himself. In dire need, he turns to his neighbor Richard Hannay, a mining engineer from South Africa on a short vacation in London . Scudder reports to Hannay about a planned assassination attempt on the Greek Prime Minister Karolides on the occasion of a state visit to the British capital. Its key role in the Balkans strengthens the allied military alliance and could provide the British fleet with valuable preparation time by delaying the outbreak of war.
Despite initial suspicion, Hannay provides his guest room and Scudder begins to check the details of the plot in his notebook. The next morning, Hannay leaves the apartment to buy a train ticket to Strathallan, the Scottish hometown from childhood. Because of another threat, Scudder follows Hannay to the train station and is murdered before the notebook is handed over. Erroneously accused of the crime, Hannay faces the death penalty because the police, led by Chief Superintendent Lomas, do not believe his statements. Shortly after the verdict was announced, the German agents kidnapped Hannay in order to gain possession of the secret information. Hannay escapes and finds the supposed notebook under a bathroom scale in the train station. However, it only contains a written page with a hidden note. Disguised as a vicar, Hannay embarks on a journey to his Scottish homeland. When the police board the train, Hannay forces an emergency stop and flees under a bridge. On his subsequent walk north, he is now being hunted from both sides. Shortly before the Germans reach him, he joins noble Alex Mackenzie and her fiancé David Hamilton under a false name and under the pretext of taking part in a bet. Both quickly reveal Hannay's true identity, but not least because of Mackenzie's obvious sympathy for the stranger, they help him to continue his escape. Together they solve the riddle about the whereabouts of the real diary: Scudder had thrown it in a mailbox on the way to the train station and sent it to Strathallan.
The data encoded by Scudder are decrypted by Lomas and his staff. The bomb attack on the Greek Prime Minister in the parliamentary hall is to be triggered at exactly 11:45 a.m. by a mechanism that is linked to the Big Ben clockwork . In addition, it is planned to flee the assassins back to Germany on a cruiser called Ariadne , which is anchored in Gravesend . Together with Lomas and several police officers, Hannay reached the top of the clock tower just a few minutes before the planned attack. The Germans have almost completed the installation of the technical devices and are still in the room that has been locked from the inside. After unsuccessful negotiations, Hannay smashes the glass on the dial and climbs outside. With the last of his strength, he manages to stop the minute hand and thus prevent the bomb from igniting. Meanwhile, the police break into the locked room and overpower both assassins after a shootout. Sir Edmund Appleton, a senior British cabinet member and at the same time head of enemy agents, was arrested a little later on a hijacked police boat on Westminster Pier.
background
The agent novel by John Buchan served as the basis for Alfred Hitchcock 's thriller of the same name as early as 1935 . In 1959, director Ralph Thomas shot a remake in color, the artistic processing of which shows strong parallels to the original version by Hitchcock. The remake from 1978 is closer to the literary model than the two earlier adaptations . In addition to the embedding of a love story as a subplot, the finale at the London clock tower Big Ben in particular differs from the novel, which ends in a coastal town in Kent . While the 39 steps lead from the steep coast down to the sea, in Sharp's film they refer to the spiral staircase in the clock tower. The sequence of scenes in which Hannay hangs on the hand of the clock goes back to the 1943 film My Learned Friend . In the silent film Skyscraper, of all things, which was made 20 years earlier . (Original title: Safety last! ) Harold Lloyd had a similar appearance. The motif was taken up again by actor Jackie Chan both in 1983 in The Superfighter and in 2003 in Shanghai Knights .
In the late eighties, Robert Powell played Richard Hannay again in the 13-part British television series Hannay . For Eric Porter, the role of Chief Superintendent Lomas was his last appearance in a movie. The former child actress Karen Dotrice had one of her few adult film roles as the aristocrat Alex Mackenzie and Hannays later lover.
The film was shot at Pinewood Studios, west of London, with the location being shot in England and Scotland. Richard Hannay's apartment was on Albert Court, right next to the Royal Albert Hall . The scene of Scudder's assassination was Marylebone Railway Station, northwest of central London. The Severn Valley Railway with the Victoria Bridge, which spans the River Severn between the village of Arley and the small town of Bewdley in Worcestershire , served as the backdrop for the scenes in the railway . Scottish filming locations in traditional Dumfriesshire include the Forest of Ae , the adjacent Mitchellslacks Moor , the village of Durisdeer and the area around Drumlanrig Castle . In one of the key scenes, Hannay, together with Alex Mackenzie and David Hamilton, reconstructed Scudder's last words in the ruins of Morton Castle and thus tracked down his diary.
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Richard Hannay | Robert Powell | Randolf Kronberg |
| Sir Edmund Appleton | David Warner | Lothar Blumhagen |
| Chief Supt Lomas | Eric Porter | Horst Schön |
| Alex Mackenzie | Karen Dotrice | Eva Maria Miner |
| Colonel Scudder | John Mills | Martin Hirthe |
| Sir Walter Bullivant | George Baker | Friedrich W. Building School |
| Bayliss | Ronald pickup | Friedrich G. Beckhaus |
| Marshall | Donald Pickering | Christian Rode |
| Postage | Timothy West | Michael Chevalier |
| David Hamilton | Miles Anderson | Norbert Gescher |
Soundtrack
The soundtrack was recorded by the Rank Concert Orchestra under the direction of Ed Welch and released on record in 1978 by United Artists Records (UAG 30208). The individual themes of the film were supplemented by the twelve-minute opening piece The Thirty-Nine Steps Concerto with the soloist Christopher Headington on the piano.
| No. | title | Duration (min) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Thirty-Nine Steps Concerto | 12:00 |
| 2 | Soiree At The Hydro | 2:36 |
| 3 | Hannay In Scotland | 1:45 |
| 4th | 'Good Morning Mr. Scudder' | 1:42 |
| 5 | Richard and Alex | 2:30 |
| 6th | Fight on the stairs | 1:45 |
| 7th | The Game Keeper Fight | 2:23 |
| 8th | The wheelchair | 2:00 |
| 9 | Big Ben drama | 4:14 |
| 10 | Rescue At Big Ben | 2:25 |
| 11 | The Thirty-Nine Steps Theme | 1:42 |
Reviews
"Largely exciting remake of the spy novel already used by Hitchcock, in which the Germans, as in the original, appear as ingenious villains."
Awards
Karen Dotrice 1980 won the Evening Standard British Film Award in the category Most Promising youth development ( Most Promising Newcomer Actress ).
DVD release
39 levels , SchröderMedia, June 2010, approx. 99 minutes, image format 1.33 (4: 3), sound formats German 2.0, English 2.0
The DVD packaging contains a reversible cover with drawn motifs from the film without the FSK logo.
literature
- John Buchan: The Thirty Nine Steps . German by Marta Hackel, illustrated by Edward Gorey. Diogenes, Zurich 1980, ISBN 3-257-20210-5 (English: The Thirty-Nine Steps .).
Web links
- The 39 Steps in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The 39 levels in the online film database
- The 39 levels in the German dubbing index
- The 39 Steps at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
- Review on thespinningimage.co.uk (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ My Learned Friend (1943). In: Screenonline. British Film Institute, accessed March 31, 2013 .
- ^ The Thirty Nine Steps (1978). Trivia. IMDb.com, accessed April 23, 2011 .
- ↑ The Thirty-Nine Steps (1978) film locations. (No longer available online.) In: The Worldwide Guide To Movie Locations. Tony Reeves, archived from the original on May 1, 2011 ; accessed on April 23, 2011 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ dubDB: online synchronous database. Hendrik Meyerhof, accessed on April 23, 2011 .
- ↑ Thirty-Nine Steps, The - Soundtrack details. SoundtrackCollector, accessed April 24, 2011 .
- ^ Evening Standard British Film Awards. Awards for 1980. IMDb.com, accessed April 23, 2011 .
- ↑ The actor Eric Mills mentioned on the top right of the DVD cover next to John Mills is a typographical error: he is apparently referring to actor Eric Porter.
