As Wikipedia notes, “ The Thirty-Nine Steps is one of the earliest examples of the ‘man-on-the-run’ thriller archetype subsequently adopted by Hollywood as an often-used plot device. When, a few days later, Scudder is found murdered, Hannay-fearful that he will be accused of that other man’s death, should he go to the police, and convinced that Scudder’s killers will come after him next-flees to Scotland, hoping to carry on Scudder’s mission and reveal the German conspiracy. Scudder tells Hannay that there’s a German plot in the works to assassinate the prime minister of Greece and filch Britain’s plans for the outbreak of fighting in Europe. Scudder, who claims to be in hot pursuit of a cabal of German undercover agents. He soon encounters an American freelance spy, Franklin P. The original novel finds Hannay returning to London from Africa on the stressful eve of the First World War. It’s the fourth film based on Buchan’s thriller, the most famous of the previous productions being Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 version, which starred Robert Donat as Richard Hannay, an “accidental hero who foils a German plot on the eve of World War I,” to quote from the Times. As The New York Times reports, a 90-minute BBC-TV adaptation of Scottish author John Buchan’s 1915 adventure novel, The Thirty-Nine Steps-first broadcast in Britain back in 2008-will debut on American television tomorrow night, Sunday, February 28, carried by PBS-TV stations. I’ve been waiting for a while to post this, and now seems like an appropriate occasion.

The 39 steps by john buchan