North by Northwest

North by Northwest
Screenplay: Ernest Lehman
Stars: Cary Grant (Roger Thornhill), Eva Marie Saint (Eve Kendall), James Mason (Phillip Vandamm), Jessie Royce Landis (Clara Thornhill), Leo G. Carroll (Professor), Philip Ober (Lester Townsend), Josephine Hutchinson (Handsome Woman), Martin Landau (Leonard), Adam Williams (Valerian)
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Year of Release: 1959
Country: USA
North by Northwest Poster
It was originally titled "In a Northwest Direction." Then it was tentatively called "The Man on Lincoln's Nose." It was produced by MGM in 1959, a once-great movie studio that was then on the brink of financial collapse because it refused to let go of the old studio system while other studios were moving on. It was originally supposed to star Gregory Peck and Cyd Charisse, but the director, Alfred Hitchcock, had only one actor in mind for the lead role, the man for whom the character, an ordinary man mistaken for a spy, had been written: Cary Grant.

The movie, as you might have guessed by now, is "North by Northwest," and it is one of Hitchcock's most masterfully sublime films. Sitting chronologically between Hitchcock's two undisputed masterpieces, "Vertigo" (1958) and "Psycho" (1960), "North by Northwest" has often been overlooked as merely a lightweight romantic comedy/thriller. Of course, that's what it is ... on the surface. But, like so many of Hitchcock's films, there is much more going on underneath.

Cary Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, a self-absorbed advertising executive with two ex-wives and an overly doting mother (Jessie Royce Landis). Early in the film, he is mistakenly identified as George Kaplan, an American spy who is on the trail of international criminals led by Phillip Vandamm (James Mason), a suave, debonair, and merciless thief who trades in international espionage. Vandamm manages to frame Thornhill for the murder of a United Nation representative, which sends Thornhill fleeing from the police as he attempts to track down the elusive Kaplan who could hold all the answers to his dilemma.

"North by Northwest" is the classic Hitchcock "double chase" movie, where the wrongly accused is trying to save himself while also escaping both the bad guys and the police at the same time. It is a film that is broad in scope (it was also MGM's first film shot in VistaVision widescreen), taking us from the United Nations building in New York, to the Chicago train station, to an empty field near Indianapolis (actually filmed in Bakersfield, California), and winding up in Rapid Falls, South Dakota with an elaborate chase scene across the stone faces of Mount Rushmore. "North by Northwest" is the predecessor of the modern action film, especially the James Bond series, which debuted with "Dr. No" three years later.

In multiple ways, "North by Northwest" represents Hitchcock at the height of his cinematic talents. MGM gave him complete artistic license when making the film, and it shows just how clearly Hitchcock was in control of his subject matter, even though screenwriter Ernest Lehman ("Sabrina," "West Side Story," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?") was still working on the script during principle photography, which is brashly uncharacteristic of a tightly controlled Hitchcock production.

Many adjectives can be used to describe this film: it's exciting, it's funny, and it's extremely sensual, thanks to the sometimes comical but undeniably sexy rapport between Grant and Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, the traditional Hitchcock blond whose cold exterior is only a mask for the heated passion beneath. Eve is an intentionally confusing character, who literally comes out of nowhere, aids Thornhill in evading the police for no particular reason, and then attempts to send him to his death. Her loyalties are not made clear until the last quarter of the film, where she becomes the catalyst for change in Thornhill's character.

Eva Marie Saint is effective as Eve, but she never looks quite comfortable in a role that was so perfectly filled by Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, and Kim Novak in other Hitchcock films. Grant, however, is absolutely perfect as Thornhill, a role that demands he be both an almost superhuman hero and a self-reflexive comedian who doesn't mind a few jokes aimed his way. Probably no other actor in the world could have pulled off Thornhill's character with Grant's make-it-look-easy precision; it didn't hurt that he was essentially building on a character he had created in earlier Hitchcock films, "Notorious" (1946) and "To Catch a Thief" (1955).

What most viewers take away from "North by Northwest" is the sense of exhilaration from the perfectly executed action sequences. Although the chase across Mount Rushmore is fascinating (it was also the first scene Hitchcock dreamed up, making it--like the shower scene in "Psycho"--more or less the entire reason the movie was made), but the stand-out sequence is the renowned crop-dusting scene, where Grant's character, after being stranded on a lonely highway surrounded by dead cornfields, is menaced by a mysterious crop-duster.

What's amazing about the sequence is the way Hitchcock utilizes the instruments of pure cinema--a mix of objective and subjective camera shots and natural sounds, with no music--to create suspense and terror. He makes use of open spaces in broad daylight in a way that is astounding--he creates claustrophobia in the middle of nowhere. Call it the tyranny of open spaces; the scene is enough to make anyone agoraphobic.

"North by Northwest" also represents an almost flawless combination of its surface excitement with subtextual ideology. Although primarily a comic spy thriller, "North by Northwest" has a strong ideological base in its indictment of overpowering bureaucracies and their use and abuse of individuals. It's an interesting reversal of the kind of individual/community dichotomy established in many classical Hollywood films like "Casablanca" (1942), where the importance of the community always ended up outweighing the importance of individuals.

In "North by Northwest," the community is represented by heartless bureaucracies like the CIA, who are willing to sacrifice innocent people for secretive causes involving the Cold War. Community is symbolized by the huge, emotionless stone faces on Mount Rushmore and the towering glass building that houses the United Nations, which in one fantastic shot is seen literally towering over the ant-like characters trying to escape it.

The underlying cynicism about government in "North by Northwest"--which predates the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, and Watergate, all modern harbingers of mistrust in politics and government officials--makes it somewhat ahead of its time. This is a movie that never gets old despite its Cold War datedness, and the comedy, the action, and the sexiness of its stars make it great fun to watch again and again.

©1998 James Kendrick




Overall Rating: (4)




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