Oprah Movie Club Pick for May: North by Northwest

1959 thriller

Rating: 18/20

Plot: An advertising executive is mistaken for a CIA agent who doesn't even exist and has to traverse the country to find him and exculpate himself of a crime he didn't commit. He meets a blonde and nearly ruins his suit.

First, here's the location for the crop-dusting scene on Google Maps. I thought this was cool.

Hitchcock had a gift for creating thrills, but the thing that sticks out more for me in North by Northwest is the randiness and comedic touches. He and writer Ernest Lehman sauce things up with the arrival of the fetching Eva Marie Saint. The dialogue titillates, double entendres sparkle. Grant's suave and charming, the kind of dude who demonstrates a Hemingwayian "grace under pressure" when taking the time to flirt with a random broad while being chased by good guys and bad guys and chasing non-existent guys, but when you take a step back and look at him, he's not all that bright. Eve Kendell's a little too convenient, isn't she? The character might be great at playing the role, so seductive that his part nearly shifts, but why wouldn't a question like "Wait a second--why is she helping me?" ever cross his mind? I guess because his mind's in his trousers. I'm trying to place myself in Thornhill's loafers to decide whether I'd take the risk for a chance to have Eva Marie Saint fondle the back of my head, and I think I've ultimately decided that I would. She is, after all, a "big girl" "in all the right places," and there's just something about the little movements of her eyebrows, the way her fingers dance across Grant's ears, and the way she blows out a match that would be hard to resist. I know there are folks who would have liked to see another actress in this role, but Eva Marie Saint nails it for me, and I'd find it hard to believe that Cary Grant was without a boner in more than a few of these scenes. Love the way she says "I'm twenty-six and unmarried. Now you know everything." Their whole back-and-forth on the train is as stimulating as any modern sex scene, and they don't even "do it" (as the kids would say) on that first train ride. I know that because Hitchcock shows us an exterior shot of the train rumbling powerfully down the tracks while saving the phallic-symbol-entering-a-tunnel shot for the very end of the film. Randy!

Man, "using sex like some people use a flyswatter" is such a good line. He's got a few good lines. I like the one where he asks about which "subtle form of manslaughter" is going to be attempted next after they bad guys have tried to kill him by staging a drunk driving accident and hitting him with a plane. Not the most practical ways to end somebody's life. He also, exhibiting more of that grace under pressure, cracks jokes about real bullets and takes jabs at Eva. And he does it all like a true movie star, just exuding the kind of coolness that could make some men question their sexuality. They don't make movie stars like that anymore unless you'd put Clooney in that category. I also liked Landau's henchman character. There was just enough subtle suggestion to make you wonder about Leonard's sexuality and throw a submerged love triangle subplot in there. The camera just caught Landau's Leonard staring longingly at his boss too often. Speaking of Vandamm, I like how our first glimpse of him shows him playing croquet. And we learn later that he's not even playing croquet at his own house and maybe, unless he brought his own set along, playing with his own equipment. For whatever reason, that's funny. [Edit: My father tells me that it's Landau playing croquet. Are they both playing? It's not a game you're supposed to play by yourself.] The bad guys aren't exactly well-written characters, and there's little depth. They're just kind of there to throw Thornhill into different situations.

I hadn't seen this movie in a long time and remembered some of the effects being dated. I thought there was more green screen use, I guess. I'm not sure what I was thinking because the two big moments--the plane and Mt. Rushmore--look really good. Well, Mt. Rushmore looks as if it's a little too small, but I don't know for sure because I've never been there. But I did really believe the characters were climbing down the faces on that monument. That entire sequence seems like it would be too goofy to work, but I like what Hitchcock does with camera angles, and the suspense overshadows the absurdity of the whole thing. The crop-dusting scene takes place in Indiana, something that I was not aware of. That's appropriate because that kind of thing happens in Western Indiana all the time. That's a great scene, especially if you have seen the movie or looked at the poster and spotted the plane. Hitchcock uses time very well there and gets away with having Cary Grant just stand there looking at dirt for a lot longer that most people would think about having him stand there looking at dirt. The entire thing is shown sans music, and if you listen closely enough, you can hear the rumbling plane the whole time. Later, there's the great shot of Grant and the guy with the hat standing on opposite sides of the road just looking at each other and a great use of rustling corn. Great scene! The only effect that does look a little quaint is the drunken drive chase sequence. Grant's facial expressions don't help that scene much.

The whole movie isn't sans music, of course, and Bernard Herrmann's  score is terrific. I love the boisterous opening music, stuff you're just not going to hear in movies anymore. They don't make movie stars and they don't do movie music like that anymore. There are times when Herrmann's score is a little too big maybe, but it punctuates perfectly most of the time, easily enhancing more than it gets in the way. His compositions always make driving seem more exciting than it does in other movies.

This also has one of my favorite Hitchcock cameos. He gets it out of the way early here. A tiny razor, uproarious elevator laughter, another mom character, a pair of stolen cabs, unintelligible dialogue at an airport, and, according to my father, a kid in a restaurant covering his ears. There's just a ton to love about this mistaken identity everyman adventure yarn!