Eve Kendall: What happened with your first two marriages?
Roger Thornhill: My wives divorced me.
Eve Kendall: Why?
Roger Thornhill: They said I led a dull life.
The 1950’s were a wonderfully creative time for Alfred Hitchcock. Seemingly no other period in the director’s career yielded such remarkable results. While Hitchcock began the period with the low key and ultimately forgettable Stage Fright, he began a streak from 1951 to 1954 that would be the envy of any director with Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953), Dial M for Murder (1954), and the masterpiece Rear Window (1954).
The second half of the decade would be no less formidable with To Catch a Thief (1955), The Trouble with Harry (1955) , The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), and one of the greatest movies of all time, Vertigo (1958). Amazingly, Vertigo’s initial release was met with a cold reception from critics and audiences. It was not until later that the film attained the rightful classic status it enjoys today.
With Hitchcock’s next film, the same would not be said.
For The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Wrong Man, and Vertigo Hitch had worked with only one composer, Bernard Herrmann. Sometime in the latter portion of the decade, Herrmann introduced the director to an acquaintance of his, Screenwriter Ernest Lehman. The meeting between the two went so well that they decided to do a project together. MGM had lined up the film The Wreck of the Mary Deare, and Hitchcock had decided it would be a good movie for the two to work on. Unfortunately, Lehman found the book the film was to be based on impossible to adapt and came to Hitchcock with his concerns. He decided to leave the project, but instead of staying with the film, Hitch decided to stay with his screenwriter and start a new film.
That film would be the capper to the most successful decade in this director’s, or perhaps any director’s, career. Combining many elements from several of his films as well as casting one of the world’s most popular actors, Hitch would create one of his most successful films both critically and financially. That film would be North By Northwest.
North By Northwest Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
There are different reports as to where the idea for the film actually began. According to the documentary Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest, Ernest Lehman states that Hitchcock had the idea for a chase scene that took place on the faces of Mount Rushmore. IMDB.com states that it was journalist Otis L. Guernsey Jr., who recalled stories to Hitchcock of the Allies leaking information to the Germans about agents that really didn’t exist and that that was the genesis of the story.
No matter what event should get the credit for the film’s beginnings, North by Northwest is an indisputable masterpiece. No film in the director’s filmography is filled with more joy or has more action than the 1959 thriller. Also, although Hitchcock had helmed dark Comedies in the past, no film he ever directed was filled with more laughs than North By Northwest. The film has a tone similar to that of a Republic serial as the laughs keep coming while the film jumps from one amazing action sequence to another.
Before the film could get off the ground though, the film needed a star. Jimmy Sterwart would seem the logical choice after being Hitch’s main leading man for the last decade. Unfortunately, with the low box office for Vertigo both the studio and Hitchcock were unsure of the star’s bank-ability. MGM apparently wanted Gregory Peck for the film’s lead, Roger O. Thornhill. Instead, Hitchcock went with Cary Grant.
To say that Grant was perfect for the role would be an understatement. To play Roger Thornhill, the actor in question had to be an everyman, but still be able to project a larger than life kind of atmosphere. Roger Thornhill is an advertising big shot, mistaken for a secret agent. The character had to be quick-witted, and even if he had no weapons at all had to be armed with charm and a razor sharp sense of humor. Grant pulls this off masterfully.
It helps that the screenplay from writer Ernest Lehman is sparkling with brilliance. Over and over again Grant is fed lines that could rival any spoken by Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca or Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain. After he’s kidnapped by two goons believing him to be a spy by the name of Mr. Kaplan, Thornhill is taken to their boss, Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Thornhill is indignant to the entire proceeding, with hilarious results.
Roger Thornhill: And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Phillip Vandamm: Games, must we?
Roger Thornhill: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of *unreasonable* about things like that.
Another amazing element of the film is its pacing. Quite often in Hitchcock thrillers, the pacing is quite deliberate. Vertigo and Rear Window work on a slow burn up to a boiling point. The pace of North by Northwest is absolutely breakneck by comparison. The first seventeen minutes of the film has Thornhill meeting colleagues for lunch, getting kidnapped, confronting his captors, being forcibly intoxicated, nearly dying in an assassination attempt, escaping his abductors while still intoxicated and then finally being arrested for drunk driving.
We’re almost out of breath by the time Thornhill is framed for the death of a United Nations delegate, and goes on the run. Thornhill decides to follow the only lead he has and tries to track down the actual Mr. Kaplan. The film takes a big turn as Thornhill sneaks onto a train for Chicago, where the actual Kaplan is supposed to be.
This is where Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall hits the screen and gives the film an unexpected shot of sexuality. The director had to fight for his choice for Eve as the studio wanted Cyd Charisse, but Hitchcock of course had the last word. Seeing the actress being this sultry was a complete shock, considering her most famous role as Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront is the complete opposite. Anyone expecting the mousy Edie will be in for a surprise as Saint is able to keep up with the fast talking Grant in every way.
The character Eve Kendall herself is a bit of a departure even for Hitchcock though. Quite often his blondes are closer to the “Ice Queen” Kim Novak played in Vertigo. Saint’s Eve Kendall is a much warmer character and quite forward after meeting Thornhill on the train and helping him escape the authorities. There is an undercurrent of darkness indicative of Hitchcock’s ladies, but still the chemistry between Grant and Saint is an absolute joy to watch on screen and their dialogue is wonderfully timed. For example:
Eve Kendall: It’s going to be a long night.
Roger Thornhill: True.
Eve Kendall: And I don’t particularly like the book I’ve started.
Roger Thornhill: Ah.
Eve Kendall: You know what I mean?
Roger Thornhill: Ah, let me think. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
The loves scenes between the two are actually a bit risqué for the time. Original dialogue like Eve’s “I never make love on an empty stomach,” had to be changed to “I never discuss love on an empty stomach.” The two actors are simply electric on screen as their whirlwind love seems very genuine. The scenes constructed on the train by Hitchcock are also masterfully crafted for a maximum effect.
The only time North by Northwest seems to slow down at all is when Hitchcock takes time to set up the film’s most famous sequence which is also one of the most popular action sequences of all time. As Cary Grant’s Thornhill goes to meet Kaplan in a secluded field, he is attacked by crop dusting plane trying to decapitate him. The scene holds up amazingly well after almost 50 years. Grant is able to make the scene even more exciting because his character isn’t supposed to be an action hero, just an uptown executive. He makes you believe that by his body language by the way he clumsily contorts his body to try and avoid getting shot or how he stumbles away in bewilderment after an explosion.
The heavies in this film are as good as any in Hitchcock’s repertoire. The abstruse Phillip Vandamm would have been played by Yul Bryner if the studio had gotten their way. Instead, Hitchcock preferred the smooth, upper-crust charm of James Mason, who won out. With Mason portraying the villain, his low, warm voice, usually so loving, gives him a decided advantage to be able to put those around him at ease just before he strikes. Martin Landau, who can also be quite warm, is the film’s main henchman, Leonard. The character is amazingly creepy, with Landau taking the character into the realm of effeminacy just to make the audience squirm. Both of these villains are quite formidable, keeping the film’s outcome in jeopardy right up until the very end.
Other supporting performances are used for comic relief, as Jessie Royce Landis and Leo G. Carroll give us some of the film’s best laughs as Thornhill’s mother and the secret agent known only as The Professor. It’s funny that Landis was cast as the elder Thornhill because in actuality she was only a year older than grant. The actress steal’s nearly every scene she’s in. Her “doubting mother” makes fun of Grant’s character at every turn. The Professor is a more mysterious character but still seems oddly nonchalant about being an operative.
Hitchcock’s collaborators on the film all do top notch work here too, as the sets, mat paintings and cinematography are never less than stunning. The film’s climax atop Mount Rushmore would have had to have been scrapped if it were not for the special effects crew of the movie, because the film makers were forbidden to use any actual footage of the monument.
Hitchcock also had some tricks up his sleeve that he had to use for various reasons. Most notable was the shot of the United Nations, which again was forbidden for the crew to shoot. Hitchcock indeed shot the sequence by having Cary Grant walk to the door while his cameras were hidden in a truck across the street. Another sequence had to be shot right outside of Cary Grant’s apartment building within seconds to try and beat the crowds and paparazzi from moving in on the production.
On top of introducing the film’s director and screenwriter, North by Northwest owes quite a bit to Bernard Herrmann. His score here is the equal to Vertigo and Psycho and should rank up there with any score ever produced. The music over the opening titles is as good a mesh of visuals and audio as the opening titles to Star Wars.
If Vertigo was to Hitchcock what Schindler’s List is to Spielberg, then North by Northwest was definitely the director’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is one of the director’s most entertaining films and his most action packed. North by Northwest is a great example of letting a director make the film he wants to make as well as giving him the cast he wants. North by Northwest is an undisputed classic, as much fun as a Bond film and just as stunning to witness. It may get overlooked in the wake of the director’s other masterpieces, but North by Northwest should earn the title as the film maker’s most amusing spectacle.
Picture Credits: DVDtown.com, encore.at
