Sunday 28 December 2008

As an addendum to the below, I just watched the BBC and Rupert 'Adam from Spooks' Penry-Jones make a complete hyperexpository (yet wildly unfaithful) hash of John Buchan's The 39 Steps. Speaking as a massive, massive Hitchcock fan, I thought the Robert Donat version was bad enough, but this little travesty was up there with that woeful Dracula the Beeb did a couple of years ago.

3 comments:

Attic Fantasist said...

I thought it was all right. Maybe that's because I am selfish gay viewer: Penry-Jones is so handsome. Beyond that, though, don't you think it was an audition piece for the future Bond? I guess you've read Buchan's novel. What is it you have against the Donat? What last night's version missed was that wonderful scene in the music hall.

Hope you had a good christmas.

Joe said...

Hope your Christmas was good too, Chris - mine was very pleasant.

Ah, Penry-Jones. I thought he was brilliant in Spooks, fundamentally because he seems to be more or less exactly the same person as the character he plays. However, he isn't Richard Hannay. I'd attempt to say why, but the reasons are kind of intangible. I can't see him as Bond, either, not even the newly-psychologised version...

To be honest, the Hitchcock 39 Steps stands up brilliantly on its own. I just wish it was called something else, because it shares so little with the novel.

Sorry - this is really childish of me, isn't it!

Happy New Year

Joe

JENNIFER HODGSON said...

Hi and pardon me but it's all about Lucas, shurely? Apols to Joe for turning his comments section into an extension of my Cor! List, but I wasn't sold on Lucas as brooding, troubled heartthrob at all until I caught up with the last chunk of Series 7 in a post-midnight marathon and found myself totally buying it. Ah, as you were.

J