Hitchcock Plays Tag

Rating: 10/10 (25 August 2009)

After "Vertigo", director Alfred Hitchcock turns up the comedy, and tones down the subtlety, for this one. "North by Northwest" is also the summation of a favorite, most-used Hitchcock plot: an ordinary man is mistakenly identified, falsely accused, and pursued by mysterious forces. The famous "crop-dusting sequence" is the peak of this story-theme, with wronged man Cary Grant (as Roger O Thornhill) helplessly attacked by an airplane in broad daylight as he waits at a bus stop in the middle of nowhere to meet a man who doesn't exist.
The only logical way to follow-up this line of suspense was with "The Birds"; therein, the attacker becomes the inhuman, thus more horrific, species of flying fowl. We innately know that, if birds were as big as crop-dusting airplanes, they would eat us. So, Mr. Grant is perhaps safer with a single plane than he would be against a flock of seagulls. The missing link in Hitchcock's chronological quartet is "Psycho", which followed "North by Northwest", and climaxes the director's psychologically-based terror themes. And, at long last, sex is used like a fly-swatter.
The marvelously funny script, by Ernest Lehman, received most of the attention, when it was time to give out 1959 movie awards. Hitchcock's direction, Bernard Herrmann's musical score and George Tomasini's editing couldn't be beat - but, they were. A trio of supporting players might have be noticed: Eva Marie Saint (as Eve Kendall), Martin Landau (as Leonard), and James Mason (as Phillip Vandamm) seethe with forbidden sex. Listen up for Mr. Landau's scene-stealing "Call it my woman's intuition" line; and, watch for Ms. Saint to seductively mouth "I never make love on an empty stomach." Naught, naughty.
********** North by Northwest (7/17/59) Alfred Hitchcock ~ Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Landau, James Mason