Cary Grant: The Original Running Man

Rating: 10/10 (20 July 2012)

For me, it is difficult to see North By Northwest so closely after recent viewings of Vertigo, the film preceding it in Hitchcock's canon, as there is no way that it can match Vertigo's emotional and evocative power or legacy. Yet, consider this: in a three year span, Hitchcock crafted Vertigo, North By Northwest, and Psycho, each film a distinctly American classic, each film a template for all subsequent films of the genre to follow and imitate, each film still eminently watchable and compelling. What director has ever had such a prolific burst of filmmaking?
Consider Roger O. Thornhill (the O stands for nothing!) as a Mad Man of Madison Avenue advertising, a contemporary to Don Draper who dictates his letters to his secretary as he steals cabs, frets about his theater tickets, fusses over his mother and his two ex-wives. By raising his hand at an inopportune moment at drinks in a restaurant, Thornhill is mistaken for spy George Kaplan by some tough guys. A gun is drawn, Thornhill is spirited away to a remote mansion where the elegantly ominous Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) grills him on what he knows. And true to his middle name, Thornhill knows nothing! So, Thornhill becomes wrapped up in the life of his double, George Kaplan, finding himself in deadly situation after deadly situation, as he becomes embroiled in a tale of international intrigue.
The character of Roger Thornhill is the precursor to many classic movie heroes: John McLane in Die Hard, outwitting the terrorists verbally and physically; The Fugitive's Dr. Richard Kimble, the accused man out to clear his name, shunning eye contact with people on the CTA who are reading papers that have his picture on them; The Big Lebowski shamelessly cribs two key moments from this film as The Dude deals with the Chief of Police in Malibu (Very reactionary!) and finds a phone message on a notepad from Jackie Treehorn; both Ethan Hunt from Mission: Impossible-Ghost Protocol and the man from Man on a Ledge, two quick- thinking heroes who stand outside buildings high up in the air contemplating escape routes as well as death. Sequence after sequence in North By Northwest is groundbreaking and still with us today in the echoes of modern action and chase films. Thornhill evading the police on the train. Disguising himself. Sneaking up to the house and eavesdropping. Finding an address. Dropping his matchbook. What I like most about Grant's performance as Thornhill is his conveyance of genuine annoyance of the confusion caused at times by the double George Kaplan, his exasperation at his circumstances, his sense of righteousness in clearing his name, and his elegantly graceful movements and style. "But I have theater tickets! Tonight! With mother!" he tells his captors at one point, and Thornhill's annoyance converts brilliantly to bitterest gall at his betrayal. I haven't seen many other Cary Grant performances, but this one is brilliant.
Hitchcock's confidence in his storytelling allows there to be stretches of silence where Thornhill creeps around, listening and climbing around a Rapids City base for Vandamm and his Communist camp. Hermann's score drives these scenes, but not in an overpowering way. Rather, the score is the pulse of the film, driving and insistent and full of scary wonder.
The centerpiece of the film is the bravura sequence involving a low-flying crop duster plane about ninety minutes outside of Chicago as a confused Thornhill awaits his supposed meeting with George Kaplan. The crane shot of Thornhill standing at the desolate, almost desert-like crossroads of rural Indiana farmland is classic, existential, and evocative (referenced in films as wide as Cast Away to O Brother, Where Art Thou?), and as Thornhill wanders and wonders about, the engine of the crop duster cuts in and out of the soundtrack in the background. When the plane finally does what it does, the result is terrifying and must have been even more so in 1959. What a perfect image for the hunted man in the wrong place at the wrong time! What surprised me was how long this sequence was. Hitchcock took over ten minutes to set up the scene before the madness started. His patience is one of the things that make him the master of suspense. Even though I knew what was coming this time, it was upsetting and moving to see it play out. And the end to the scene is a classic action film trope still with us today.
And Eve Kendall and Roger Thornhill's flirtatious banter on the train to Chicago has to be a cinematic high point. Both actors are so comfortable and appear to be having so much fun with the provocative lines and coy propositions. The lines caused great laughter in my audience at the Sundance Theater in Houston in 2012, so I have to imagine the forwardness and frankness they must have evoked in 1959. The conversation's context, the traveling of the pair west from New York, is important; Hitchcock slows the film down to give us at least twenty minutes on the train, moving with the characters, savoring the journey and the chase.
And the film's final shot? One of the greatest innuendos of cinema as well. The blast of the train horn and the imagery? Brilliant.