{"id":5547,"date":"2009-11-04T10:22:46","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T18:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5547"},"modified":"2009-11-04T11:24:42","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T19:24:42","slug":"north-by-northwest-alfred-hitchcock-1959-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=5547","title":{"rendered":"North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Brian Livesay<\/a>. Viewed at the Mann Chinese Theatre, Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\"Original-North-by-Northwest-alfred-hitchcock-1622996-653-418\"Warner Brothers has recently (11-03-2009)\u00a0released North by Northwest<\/em><\/a> as a 50th Anniversary Edition\u00a0package\u00a0on both\u00a0DVD and\u00a0Blu-ray. I was\u00a0fortunate enough\u00a0to have the opportunity to view the film the night before its actual public release and I\u00a0thoroughly enjoyed the film. Two heavy hitting actors of their time who had\u00a0supported Cary Grant’s lead role\u00a0in the film were in attendance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Martin Landau and Eva Marie Saint\u00a0helped\u00a0to shed some insight and provide some back story\u00a0into the making of the\u00a0film that would not have been\u00a0known otherwise. For instance, in\u00a0a scene where Eva Marie Saint’s character (Eve Kendall) falls back and injures her arm,\u00a0Mrs. Saint\u00a0was actually\u00a0injured during the filming of that\u00a0scene when the person that was\u00a0assigned to catch her let her fall a little too far and\u00a0she\u00a0smacked her arm. She said that it did have an\u00a0influence on\u00a0her performance \u00a0as she was actually in pain during that filming sequence. We also learned that it was Martin Landau’s idea for\u00a0his character Leonard that he portrayed in the movie, to be\u00a0\u00a0gay. There is a verbal exchange at one point\u00a0in 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.\u00a0 A very entertaining portion of the segment was when Martin Landau imitated Alfred Hitchcock with his deep voice and infamous\u00a0one liners. He did a great job\u00a0impersonating him\u00a0and it was fun to see his impressive\u00a0improvisational skills in action as it did not appear to be staged.<\/p>\n

Getting to the movie, North by Northwest is a classic Alfred\u00a0Hitchcock film which\u00a0includes not only\u00a0a superb cast,\u00a0but also\u00a0showcases some amazing dialogue and flawless\u00a0interaction between the characters\u00a0which certainly\u00a0had the crowd\u00a0chuckling on many occasions.\u00a0Hitchcock’s\u00a0profound\u00a0attention to detail during the making\u00a0of this film was very\u00a0evident\u00a0whether it\u00a0was\u00a0with choosing the wardrobe, (He advised Landau specifically to\u00a0seek out\u00a0Cary Grant’s tailor and to\u00a0be sure that he had a nicer suit on than Grant),\u00a0to painstakingly\u00a0searching\u00a0many jewelery stores\u00a0in the area before finally finding the\u00a0right ruby necklace that\u00a0ends up being\u00a0worn in the film\u00a0by Eva Marie Saint. Hitchcock was known for story boarding the entire film before\u00a0shooting \u00a0it. <\/p>\n

In\u00a0North by Northwest, Cary Grant portrays Roger Thornhill<\/span>, an advertising executive who, in a case of mistaken identity, (He’s mistaken\u00a0for a man named Kaplan<\/span>)\u00a0is kidnapped at gun point and\u00a0taken to an estate where he is\u00a0questioned and forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol before being\u00a0let loose\u00a0to\u00a0steer\u00a0and navigate a\u00a0stolen car\u00a0over a winding coastal road where he wearily\u00a0maneuvers the vehicle over\u00a0sheer cliffs.\u00a0As this takes place,\u00a0the villains are\u00a0hoping\u00a0for\u00a0a dramatic crash\u00a0resulting in\u00a0\u00a0his death<\/span> while at the same time,\u00a0having it appear as an accident. When Thornhil<\/span> narrowly escapes death<\/span> and is arrested on drunk driving charges, he calls his mother who shows up for support on his behalf. His mother is played by\u00a0Jessie Royce Landis\u00a0who puts on a superb performance as his\u00a0snooty and\u00a0well\u00a0-to-do\u00a0mother who humorously and\u00a0condescendingly rolls her eyes\u00a0while making\u00a0negative comments during\u00a0Thornhill’s<\/span> court appearance\u00a0as his lawyer\u00a0attempts to make\u00a0a case that he is an honorable and trustworthy man. It was enough to gather\u00a0some laughs from audience members and keep the film lighthearted and entertaining.\u00a0Hitchcock did a good\u00a0job\u00a0of adding in elements of suspense and he also succeeded in keeping the audience interested with<\/span> questions\u00a0such as\u00a0who was Kaplan<\/span>, Why was Thornhill<\/span> kidnapped, Who is this beautiful and\u00a0mysterious woman,\u00a0so on and so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At one point Cary Grant’s character is wanted for murder when he goes into\u00a0a U.N. building to hunt down\u00a0his assailant who ends up being a different man than the one that he\u00a0is looking for. This man\u00a0is killed by one of the villains that had originally kidnapped him. As Grant pulls the knife\u00a0from the mans back, people assume that he was the attacker and his photo is\u00a0distributed to many newspapers and a wild manhunt ensues.\u00a0Every time you see one\u00a0particular villain, you get irritated because he has a tendency to\u00a0show up just before something key\u00a0is figured out, or just before grant can get away cleanly. He is the type of character\u00a0the audience\u00a0loves to hate. <\/p>\n

There are many James Bond-Esque qualities to the film (This film pre-dates the\u00a0James\u00a0bond\u00a0films)\u00a0\u00a0 such as the lead character\u00a0being very handsome and successful. Also, all of the women that he comes in contact with swoon over him, and he is\u00a0consistently\u00a0able 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\u00a0a testament to the old days of film making\u00a0where 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\u00a0option back when this film was\u00a0made so they had to have good quality\u00a0acting and story-lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Brian Livesay. Viewed at the Mann Chinese Theatre, Hollywood. Warner Brothers has recently (11-03-2009)\u00a0released North by Northwest as a 50th Anniversary Edition\u00a0package\u00a0on both\u00a0DVD and\u00a0Blu-ray. I was\u00a0fortunate enough\u00a0to have the opportunity to view the film the night before its actual public release and I\u00a0thoroughly enjoyed the film. Two heavy hitting actors of their time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":741,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[96,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-afi-filmfest-2009","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/741"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}