1959 - THE 39 STEPS, remaking the Hitchcock classic...poorly

Remaking the Hitchcock film in color and setting it in contemporary late 1950's England yielded the expected results, the film sucked.

This redo of the seminal Hitchcock classic is a study in what separates a good director from an average director.  In the original version, Hitchcock along with his actors Robert Donet and Madeline Carroll were able to bring a lot of wit and style to the story.   Kenneth More was a decent actor and light comedian but he lacks the charm of Robert Donet and certainly the sex appeal.  The actor Tainia Elg is supposed to be the stand in for Hitchcock's cool blonde personality.  Elg's got the cool part down but not much else.

Even though they kept most of the plot situations and dialog from the original film while adding some on location filming, the director Ralph Thomas was such a plodder that the whole thing has absolutely no suspense or thrills.  Thomas was an odd choice to assign to this film,  he was mostly a director of mediocre British comedies most of which are unwatchable today.

93 minutes, written by Frank Harvey.