North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959): USA
Reviewed by Brian Livesay. Viewed at the Mann Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.
Warner Brothers has recently (11-03-2009) released North by Northwest as a 50th Anniversary Edition package on both DVD and Blu-ray. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to view the film the night before its actual public release and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Two heavy hitting actors of their time who had supported Cary Grant’s lead role in the film were in attendance.
Martin Landau and Eva Marie Saint helped to shed some insight and provide some back story into the making of the film that would not have been known otherwise. For instance, in a scene where Eva Marie Saint’s character (Eve Kendall) falls back and injures her arm, Mrs. Saint was actually injured during the filming of that scene when the person that was assigned to catch her let her fall a little too far and she smacked her arm. She said that it did have an influence on her performance as she was actually in pain during that filming sequence. We also learned that it was Martin Landau’s idea for his character Leonard that he portrayed in the movie, to be gay. There is a verbal exchange at one point in the film where Leonard is asked how he knows certain information and he replies… “call it my woman’s intuition” indicating his sexual orientation. This was a big deal for 1959. A very entertaining portion of the segment was when Martin Landau imitated Alfred Hitchcock with his deep voice and infamous one liners. He did a great job impersonating him and it was fun to see his impressive improvisational skills in action as it did not appear to be staged.
Getting to the movie, North by Northwest is a classic Alfred Hitchcock film which includes not only a superb cast, but also showcases some amazing dialogue and flawless interaction between the characters which certainly had the crowd chuckling on many occasions. Hitchcock’s profound attention to detail during the making of this film was very evident whether it was with choosing the wardrobe, (He advised Landau specifically to seek out Cary Grant’s tailor and to be sure that he had a nicer suit on than Grant), to painstakingly searching many jewelery stores in the area before finally finding the right ruby necklace that ends up being worn in the film by Eva Marie Saint. Hitchcock was known for story boarding the entire film before shooting it.
In North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive who, in a case of mistaken identity, (He’s mistaken for a man named Kaplan) is kidnapped at gun point and taken to an estate where he is questioned and forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol before being let loose to steer and navigate a stolen car over a winding coastal road where he wearily maneuvers the vehicle over sheer cliffs. As this takes place, the villains are hoping for a dramatic crash resulting in his death while at the same time, having it appear as an accident. When Thornhil narrowly escapes death and is arrested on drunk driving charges, he calls his mother who shows up for support on his behalf. His mother is played by Jessie Royce Landis who puts on a superb performance as his snooty and well -to-do mother who humorously and condescendingly rolls her eyes while making negative comments during Thornhill’s court appearance as his lawyer attempts to make a case that he is an honorable and trustworthy man. It was enough to gather some laughs from audience members and keep the film lighthearted and entertaining. Hitchcock did a good job of adding in elements of suspense and he also succeeded in keeping the audience interested with questions such as who was Kaplan, Why was Thornhill kidnapped, Who is this beautiful and mysterious woman, so on and so.
At one point Cary Grant’s character is wanted for murder when he goes into a U.N. building to hunt down his assailant who ends up being a different man than the one that he is looking for. This man is killed by one of the villains that had originally kidnapped him. As Grant pulls the knife from the mans back, people assume that he was the attacker and his photo is distributed to many newspapers and a wild manhunt ensues. Every time you see one particular villain, you get irritated because he has a tendency to show up just before something key is figured out, or just before grant can get away cleanly. He is the type of character the audience loves to hate.
There are many James Bond-Esque qualities to the film (This film pre-dates the James bond films) such as the lead character being very handsome and successful. Also, all of the women that he comes in contact with swoon over him, and he is consistently able to keep it together just enough to not get killed. Essentially his character is smooth, funny, and like-able. I highly recommend this film and it is a testament to the old days of film making where good production was king as opposed to relying on state of the art special effects that many films of today rely on. They didn’t have that option back when this film was made so they had to have good quality acting and story-lines.
About this entry
You’re currently reading “North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959): USA,” an entry on Student Film Reviews
- Published:
- 11.04.09 / 10am
- Category:
- AFI Filmfest 2009, Films
19 Comments
Jump to comment form | comments rss [?] | trackback uri [?]