North by Northwest ***** (1959, Cary Grant, James Mason, Eva Marie Saint, Jessie Royce Landis, Martin Landau, Leo G Carroll) – Classic Movie Review 4

Was any thriller busier, faster or more polished? Buckle up for North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock’s great 1959 chase-thriller ride, following the desperate knife-edge fate of charismatic but smug and selfish middle-aged Madison Avenue advertising executive Cary Grant (as Roger O Thornhill -“What does O stand for?” “Oh, nothing”).

He is confused with a spy called George Kaplan, who actually doesn’t exist but has nevertheless been checked in at a luxury New York hotel which Thornhill happens to be at. Then he’s kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein) and soon he’s on the run, being relentlessly pursued north by northwest across America by both the cops and secret agents.

Each bravura set piece follows the next in double-quick succession: Grant’s drunken cliff-top drive, his self-imposed arrest to escape the killers at an art saleroom, framed with a body in one hand and a knife in the other at the delegates’ lounge of the United Nations building in Manhattan, under fire in open country from a crop-dusting plane “where there ain’t no crops”, trying to rescue the heroine from the villains at a Frank Lloyd Wright house, and the final chase across the mountainside heads of Mount Rushmore, all filmed either on location or on superb MGM studio mock-ups.

An immaculate Grant, timing it perfectly, gives a brilliant account of a man whose outward calm, self-confidence and self-regard slowly erode to vanishing point as the movie progresses. He is supported by some of Hitch’s best players:

(1) silky James Mason as the sinister Euro-foreign spy villain Phillip Vandamm;

(2) ice-cool blonde Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, the spy and counter-agent who sweetly sends Grant to his apparent death;

(3) the redoubtable Jessie Royce Landis as Grant’s bitchy, shrill mom Clara Thornhill;

(4) an impossibly young-looking Martin Landau as Mason’s menacing crypto-gay henchman Leonard;

and (5) the always dependable Leo G Carroll as The Professor, America’s cynical spy boss (it’s no doubt the prototype of his Mr Waverly spy boss character in TV’s The Man from UNCLE).

Hitchcock, boldly dispensing with plausibility and reality, films as if in the maelstrom of a nightmare with the utmost zest and joie de vivre, getting the humour, thrills, pace and tone exactly right. Never has so much inconsequence been delivered so much conviction. With the Ernest Lehman screenplay, Robert Burks cinematography, Bernard Herrmann score and Saul Bass title credits also inspired, this sees the Master on his absolute best form with a great team, delivering a five-star classic.

‘I practise absurdity quite religiously,’ said Hitchcock, and there you have it.

Clues to the puzzling title: Hamlet in the Shakespeare play is described as being mad “nor’ by nor’west” and Grant flies north by Northwest Airlines in the movie.

Hitchcock appears in his customary cameo at the start as a bus passenger excluded by closing doors.

Hitchcock appears in his customary cameo.

In real life, Landis could hardly have been the hero’s mom. The actress was only 10 months older than Grant.

Hitchcock never did very well as the Academy Awards: there were three Oscar nominations for North by Northwest (Best Writing original story and screenplay, Editing, Art Direction/Set Decoration, colour) but alas no wins. It looks a treat made in VistaVision and Technicolor, just lovely.

Also in the cast are Adam Williams, Philip Ober, Josephine Hutchinson, Edward Platt, Robert Ellenstein, Les Tremayne, Philip Coolidge, Patrick McVey, Ed Binns, Ken Lynch, Stanley Adams, Malcolm Atterbury, Tol Avery, John Beradino, John Damler, Lawrence Dobkin, Tommy Farrell, Paul Genge, Ned Glass, Doreen Lang, Alexander Lockwood, Nora Marlowe, Howard Negley, Maudie Prickett, Ralph Reed, Jeffrey Sayre, Harry Seymour, Robert Shayne, Olan Soule, Helen Spring, Harvey Stephens, Harry Strang, Dale Van Sickel, Ray Weaver, Frank Wilcox, Robert Williams, Wilson Wood, Carleton Young, and English actress Maura McGiveney who makes her film debut in an uncredited role.

North by Northwest is directed by Alfred Hitchcock, runs 136 minutes, is made and released by MGM, is written by Ernest Lehman, shot in 35 mm VistaVision widescreen and Technicolor by Robert Burks, is produced by Alfred Hitchcock and Herbert Coleman (associate producer), is scored by Bernard Herrmann, and is designed by Robert F Boyle.

It was filmed between 27 August 1958 and 24 December 1958. The interiors and full-scale models of Mount Rushmore were shot at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, 10202 West Washington Blvd, Culver City, California.

It was premiered in Chicago on 1 July 1959, was shown at the Venice Film Festival on 1 September 1959 and had its UK premiere on 15 October 1959.

James Coburn plays a character called George Kaplan in Hudson Hawk (1991).

The idea of an innocent man mistaken for a fictional spy was suggested to Hitchcock in the early Fifties by journalist Otis L Guernsey Jr, inspired by stories of fictional spies the Allies invented in World War Two to fool the Germans. Hitchcock paid Guernsey $10,000 for the rights. A similar kind of real-life wartime story is told in The Man Who Never Was.

Hitchcock provided no direction or comments to Grant as he shot the scene of him crossing the lobby at the New York Plaza Hotel. Challenged by a journalist, Hitch replied: ‘Oh, he’s been walking across hotel lobbies by himself for years.’

Mason recalled that Grant was ‘conscientious, clutching his script until the last moment’.

Grant wore his own wardrobe and his suit was tailored by Arthur Lyons of Kilgour, French & Stanbury, Saville Row, London, with duplicates made by Quintino’s of Beverly Hills. He quarrelled with Lehman, saying it was really a David Niven script and it was lousy anyway because he didn’t understand what was going on and he doubted anyone else would. He said he ‘couldn’t make head or tails of the film’s implausible plotline’. They took their worries out on each other because they could not quarrel directly with Hitchcock.

Grant was paid $450,000 in salary as well as a share of the film’s profits but moaned about the length of the shoot and said most of his salary was going to the IRS. Producer Coleman gave him £5,000 tax free to give one hour-long press interview while on holiday in London.

Asked whether stunt men were employed, Grant said: ‘No, no, you do them yourself.’ In the crop-dusting scene, he was made to run for dear life with the plane roaring down at his back. Hitchcock, from the camera trolley tracking ahead of him, would give a signal just in time for him to fling himself full length and allow the aircraft to miss him by a few inches. Asked how many times he did it, Grant said coolly: ‘Eight times.’

Eva Marie Saint was born on 4 July 1924 on Newark, New Jersey, and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954).

Eva Marie Saint recalled: ‘Hitch didn’t talk about acting. He worked with me from the outside in. My hair, my makeup, my shoes, my jewelry, my purse, my gloves, everything. And just from creating that exterior for me, he gave me the sense of a spy lady. But we never talked about emotion. He told me not to use my hands, I have a habit of doing that, and to lower my voice. And always, in my scenes with Cary Grant, look directly into his eyes, which was not difficult.’