One Of The Greatest Movies Ever

Rating: 10/10 (28 December 2018)

I remember seeing this as a kid in 1959. I do not remember the venue (it was a long time ago) but it may well have been at a drive-in with my sisters and parents. I thought it was a great movie then and I still do (I watched it all the way through last night for about the 10th time). It has a couple of iconic scenes. One is the evil crop dusting plane on a lonely country road. The other is of course the chase on the Mt. Rushmore monument.

About 10 years ago I found a couple of minor snafus that, to be honest, bother me a bit. One is that Cary Grant decides to take a train to Rapid City to root out his adversary. Somehow Eve Kendall, played by Eva-Marie Saint, happens to be on that train. She is the love interest/government spy of the protagonist. What are the odds of such a thing? A little too slim for me to find it acceptable. The other minor problem I had was that the head of the secret government operations, called The Professor (and played by Leo G. Carroll), was constantly in plain sight in a number of scenes. Would the same man be at an auction in Chicago and then appear again in the visitor's center at Mt. Rushmore?
Anyway, a few tiny things have to be dismissed. No big deal. It is a remarkable film with a remarkable cast and director.