The 39 Steps

More an attempt to copy Hitchcock than to re-film Buchan, and it suffers by the comparison. The few changes are not for the better (Peggy Ashcroft's wistfully frustrated crofter's wife, for instance, becomes a man-hungry spiritualist, played by Brenda de Banzie), since they broaden the characterisations into caricature. For the rest, the tension is dismally slack, the comedy overdone, and the Scottish scenery ladled out in travelogue dollops.