Lux Radio Theater (1934-1955) aired “The 39 Steps” on December 13, 1937 as number 154 of it’s almost 1,000 broadcasts, making it one of the longest running and successful radio shows of all time. This Lux presentation is only the third we have showcased since the first two back in 2013 & 2014. From 1934-36 Lux ran hour-long adaptations of popular Broadway musicals, but this changed in 1936 when legendary film producer/director Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959) was brought on board and the show switched to reprising Hollywood films, again in the hour-long format. DeMille stayed with Lux for nine years (1936-45) bringing in Hollywood’s most famous actors (when possible) to re-enact their starring film roles, and all with full orchestral accompaniment before a live audience.

Scottish born John Buchan (1874-1940, photo top right) was a novelist, historian, and politician, also known as First Baron and/or The Lord Weedsmuir. He was the 15th Governor General of Canada, serving in the office from 1935-1940. He wrote over a hundred books (fiction and non-fiction), the most famous and enduring of which is The Thirty-Nine Steps. It was first serialized in All-Story Weekly in its June 5th and 12th, 1915 issues, another magazine shortly thereafter, and eventually saw print as a novel by William Blackwood and Sons in October of 1915.

The 39 Steps has become one of Britain’s most loved novels and has been adapted many times in several media, including 4 films from 1935 (from which this radio adaptation is taken), 1959, 1978, and 2008. There have been no fewer than 7 radio dramatizations dating from 1937 (the one we bring you below) and ranging all the way to 1952. The BBC has offered a trio of solo readings, the first a 12-part abridgment of the novel in 1947, followed by two other solo readings, a 5-parter in 1978 and a 10-parter as recently as 1996.

Today we would call The 39 Steps a spy thriller, but Buchan thought of The Thirty-Nine Steps as his first “‘shocker’, as he called it—a story combining personal and political dramas. It marked a turning point in Buchan’s literary career and introduced his adventuring hero Richard Hannay. He described a ‘shocker’ as an adventure where the events in the story are unlikely and the reader is only just able to believe that they really happened.”  The novel has been credited as one of the earliest examples of the “man-on-the-run” thriller archetypes, a plot device used by many filmmakers, notably Alfred Hitchcock in his 1959 spy thriller starring Cary Grant, North by Northwest. In fact, it was Hitchcock’s 1935 film version of the book that, while it deviated markedly from the novel, has been considered the best film version. In it, he has protagonist Richard Hannay, as the ordinary everyman who gets caught up in a deadly spy adventure, trapped in a convoluted tale of mis-direction, who quickly finds himself the target in a frustrating, non-stop exercise in paranoia where he learns the hard way that those he is forced to choose to trust with a secret that must not get into German hands, turn out to be wrong choices, with dire consequences.

Along with Buchan’s other well regarded literary works (30 of which were novels) in a number of fields, none other than J. R. R. Tolkien has been verified as remarking that he “admired and was influenced by Buchan’s adventure stories.” And historian David Stafford has written that  “Distinguished military historian Sir John Keegan in 2004 wrote that Buchan ‘was a writer touched by genius.’ In a list of The 100 best novels written in English, The Guardian newspaper in 2015 placed The Thirty-Nine Steps at 42nd.”

If you are unfamiliar with Buchan’s highly regarded spy thriller, or “shocker” if you will, this hour long adaptation is a good place to start as introduction. I have not read the book but have recently viewed Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 b&w version and recommend it, especially for the quality Hitchcock would come to be known as a master of…suspense.

Play Time: 59:56

(Cecil B. DeMille, 1881-1959)

{A sampling of the films Lux recreated in full hour dramatizations with original actors (when possible) reprising their roles.}

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