North by Northwest

Daniel: Few directors have established the prestige and intrigue that Alfred Hitchcock has. His films are cinematically ground breaking, with Vertigo replacing Citizen Kane on Sight & Sound’s Greatest Films of All Time list. And yet, his is a cinematic legacy that I have yet to even come close to exhausting. I’ve seen a good number of his more popular releases, yet for some reason our topic of conversation today had never crossed my path. Admittedly, it was my own fault, as North by Northwest is firmly rooted in popular culture. North by Northwest, for the other two of you that haven’t seen it, is a story of mistaken identity. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a government agent and ends up being hunted by a group of international criminals.

I’ve really done myself a disservice by not watching this movie sooner. It’s honestly been a few years since I’ve seen any of Hitchcock’s works, and this was so thoroughly marked by his direction. However the first few minutes (after the opening credits) were very jarring as it began to feel like the beginning of a Cary Grant romantic comedy, which was fun. It was something different for me to see an actor like Cary Grant thrust into a Hitchcock film. I guess I should watch the other three he stars in next.

Paul: North by Northwest has the reputation of being the “fun one” sandwiched in between Hitchcock’s more serious and disturbing masterworks. That’s pretty accurate, and I’ve had a tendency to underrate this movie for that reason. What struck me on this viewing is that there is some continuity between this and Vertigo. In general terms, they’re both about a man who gets angry with a woman for not being who she says she is. There’s even the eerie shared image of the back of the mystery woman’s head. So Hitchcock was still working through some of the same personal issues. But in the place of Vertigo’s anguish he constructed a breezy adventure this time. North by Northwest ends up being a Cold War movie, but I always forget that. The usual dread and paranoia are nicely absent. It makes sense that the man who coined the term “MacGuffin” would create such a perfect example here. All the spy stuff hangs on that elusive microfilm, but the contents don’t matter a bit compared to Roger Thornhill’s problems. I love that this man is just a random bystander who keeps finding ways to survive. I imagine a modern retelling of this story might feel the need to give him some secret espionage backstory. Nope, he’s just an ordinary guy who slowly figures things out. Grant is terrific in this. I feel like he gets younger as the movie goes along, somehow. By the end, he’s having the time of his life.

Were there other details you noticed that felt distinctively Hitchcockian to you?

Daniel: Hitchcock was an expert at projecting his vision onto the screen. Every director strives to get their vision fully realized on an audience, but here it’s done just so well. It’s subtle things like the bumps that Thornhill exaggeratedly experiences while driving the car intoxicated as well as the interesting shots like when he runs out of the UN building from an extremely panned out shot. It’s simply an interesting film to watch that moves with the apparent ease that he commands the actors, camera and framing. Despite it being “the fun one” it didn’t lack for suspense. And while I often associate Hitchcock with the macabre (thanks to The Birds and Psycho more or less being my introduction to him) this was light when it needed to be and suspenseful when it meant to be. It displayed a balance between the two that was almost uncharacteristic of the director. Not to say his films were entirely devoid of humor, but I found this one enjoyable in a different sense. I’m curious to know where this film ranks among his other works for you personally.

Paul: Well, it’s definitely in my top ten, and I can say that there’s hardly a Hitchcock film I’ve seen that I didn’t like at least a little. But I had been hoping that, on revisiting it, the film might jump in my estimation, and I don’t think it budged. My reservations all seem to relate to Eve Kendall, the Eva Marie Saint character. This is blasphemous, but I’ve always been more invested in the relationship between Grant and Audrey Hepburn in Charade, the Hitchcock knockoff, than I am in Roger and Eve’s relationship. I’m fully on board with North by Northwest as long as Roger’s motivation is to find out who and where George Kaplan is. If somebody just tried to kill me, I’d want to clear up the confusion, too. But then he has a fling on a train, and when the woman arranges a rendezvous between him and a crop duster, his objective is now to punish her. This says some things about Roger as a character, I suppose, but I find it a little jarring. Saint is perfectly fine as an icy blonde, but compared to Kim Novak or Janet Leigh, she fades into the background somewhat.

Daniel: Roger and Eve’s relationship was the driving force behind our protagonist’s actions. Sure, he needed to stop the spies and save his own skin, but it boiled down to Thornhill caring enough about Eve to risk his life even more to save her from the clutches of the evil Vandamm (James Mason). Which is a pity, because I certainly agree with you to the extent that I didn’t much care for that relationship. Kendall’s ice cold persona that bordered femme fatale was a stark contrast to Grant’s charming and humorously dry wit, but not in a complementary way. Throw him in with Hepburn, however, and you’re absolutely right, they’ll charm the scales off a snake. I admit it was fun to see Cary Grant in this kind of role, but by and large this isn’t a favorite of mine. The movie was intense and entertaining and all around good, but Hitchcock and Cary Grant have both done better films separately.

The story was fantastic. I was just as eager as Thornhill was to find out the identity of the man he was mistaken for. The suspense was there, the humor was there, and yet it was like being jarred back and forth. I think the ending of the movie was a good representation of my feelings toward it. Within seconds I’m wondering if a character is going to die and then happy that they’re on their way to married bliss. I feel I’m being harsher than I anticipated, the truth is I did really enjoy this movie and there were a lot of really fantastic elements, but it was flawed in ways I didn’t anticipate.

Paul: That closing transition is a bit of a stunner, isn’t it? But in a good way, I’d say. Generally, I don’t find the tonal shifts to be all that crazy. This movie has been described as a comedy, but I’d describe the experience as one of good-natured suavity rather than big laughs. Any time you put Cary Grant and James Mason in the same room, the Suave-o-Meter is going to be maxing out. But there’s some great banter. I think the funniest moment for me happens late in the film, when Vandamm and his minion, Leonard (Martin Landau), suddenly come to blows over whether Eve is a double agent or not. Hitchcock employs his favored technique of a punch directly toward the camera to show Vandamm knocking Leonard into a reclining position in a chair. Hearing the commotion, Eve looks down from a balcony. Quickly but smoothly, Leonard fixes his hair as if to say, “Nothing to see here. Just chilling.” The other great moment involving the layout of Vandamm’s lair is when Roger tosses his matchbook (“ROT”) down to Eve as a secret message that only she would notice. Leonard spots it before she does, and it’s a wonderfully tense moment. So there is a mix of tones, but I think they mostly complement one another. This is a very geometrically-minded film. Hitchcock is great at visualizing conflicts according to the positioning of characters in a room. There are a number of standoffs with characters on opposite ends of the frame. Which leads me to the most famous scene. You were probably a little familiar with the iconic crop duster attack, but was it effective on your first official viewing?

Daniel: It was exciting and tense, but not nearly so tense as I had expected. I’m really in an odd position here as I am very familiar with the scene, or rather, a few frames of the scene. It has remained firmly seated in my pop-culture consciousness for me to have had a false idea on how the scene would play out. Most likely thanks to seeing movie posters and montages, I assumed there would be intense music to keep me on the edge of my seat. There was none. The whole scene was devoid of any musical assistance. I appreciated the fact to an extent, but having such a strong idea on what to expect, I was more taken out of it than anything. This, I acknowledge, is my fault. When this scene (which I also subconsciously assumed would be the climax of the film) happened sooner than I expected and the movie was funnier than I was prepared for it again removed me from the intensity of the scene. I really did myself and the film a disservice by waiting so long to see it in its entirety. Objectively, there is very little wrong with the film and as I write this I’m realizing more that the majority of the issues I had were thanks primarily due to my false expectations. I did like this movie, I liked it a great deal, but I can’t help but think that had I not categorized my mind to see “Cary Grant: Comedic Actor” and “Alfred Hitchcock: Suspense Director” to such an extent, I might have enjoyed it all the more.

You mentioned that your main issue with the film was with the relationship between Roger and Eve, but was there anything else in particular that didn’t sit well with you?

Paul: Not really. This is more a case where the intensity of my connection with other films outshines a movie that is merely a brilliantly executed piece of entertainment. (Writers have made the case that there are dark undercurrents here, but I confess they still don’t make much of an impression with me.) I can definitely relate to the problem of expectations. This sounds like busywork, but it can be necessary to watch a film once just to clear away misguided expectations, so we can return to it on its own terms later. It sounds like you wouldn’t mind revisiting North by Northwest someday, though.

I’m so glad you mentioned the silence in the crop duster scene, because it’s a masterstroke. I don’t know if you saw a video that came out a little while ago that combined the scene with the Star Wars universe. It sounded like a fun mash-up but ended up being a total waste of time. The intergalactic frippery was remarkably beside the point, detracting from the perfect brown landscape in the middle of nowhere. Arguably worse, however, is that the editor drenched the scene with music from the very beginning. This choice ignores Hitchcock’s discipline. Bernard Herrmann was turning in some of his most thrilling music for this film (which is saying something), but the director knew when to withhold it for the sake of uncertainty. Anyway, I think the scene as Hitchcock directed it is a pretty flawless example of location photography and dramatic irony. It’s always rewarding to see that an iconic scene is iconic for a reason.