NORTH BY NORTHWEST: Blu-ray (MGM, 1959) Warner Home Video
Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is just
one of those movies to be unquestionably classified under the header of ‘perfect
pictures.’ Every film-maker would give a portion of their own creative
genius, and most of their soul to have made it. After all, ‘perfect pictures’
are few and far between, although they seem, in retrospect, to come in waves –
some years more fruitfully to produce contenders for the top spot than others.
1939 immediately comes to mind here. If a director can pull off at least one
movie in his/her lifetime to be considered for inclusion into such hallowed ground,
it goes without saying, dame fortune has smiled. In Hitchcock’s case, the lady must
have been roiling in orgasmic ecstasy, Hitchcock to have made several that
belong in this rarefied breed: Rebecca, I Confess, Rear Window,
To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds among
them – an enviable, admirable, and amazing spate. Hitchcock is, undeniably one
of a handful of masters in the American cinema. William Wyler, Billy Wilder,
Frank Capra, and, George Cukor are others deserving of the moniker. But I
digress.
Arguably, North by Northwest remains the
Hitchcock thriller by which all others are able to be measured; a superior
example of all the technological mastery in visual storytelling and
craftsmanship Hitchcock had honed even before coming to America. At the
beginning of North by Northwest, our hero, Madison Ave. ad exec, Roger
O. Thornhill (the ‘O.’ added as Hitchcock’s snub at David Selznick, whose micro-management
as producer on his early pictures Hitchcock positively abhorred) slyly informs
his secretary, Maggie (Doreen Lang) that “…in the world of advertising there’s
no such thing as a lie… only the expedient exaggeration of the truth”, a
rather telling prognostication as to where the plot of this movie, expertly
crafted by Ernest Lehman, will shortly be taking its audience. North by
Northwest is a fantasy thriller – teeming in implausibly staged vignettes
that somehow manage to build and build into a harrowing case of mistaken
identity. But what happens when the proverbial ‘mouse’ in this set-up decides
to turn the tables around and chase the ‘cat’?
One forgets Hitchcock and MGM – the studio footing the
bills – were not exactly in syncopated rhythm at the outset of this project. Indeed,
the National Park Service (NPS) was downright adverse to having even a film-maker
of such renown stature shoot anything near Mount Rushmore – its ‘Shrine of
Democracy’ as the NPS firmly believed that to stage mayhem on the stone-chiseled
presidential visages was akin to a kind of memorial-defacing sacrilege. Not about to let a little thing like the U.S.
Federal Government intervene in his plans, Hitchcock had his production designer,
Robert F. Boyle simply recreate Rushmore’s stoic façade on Metro’s sound stages.
As if to tempt fate and tease the powers that be, Hitchcock humorously
suggested he had always wanted to depict a man dangling off Lincoln’s eyebrow. Meanwhile,
aspiring to handcraft the Hitchcock thriller to end all Hitchcock thrillers, screenwriter,
Ernest Lehman arguably threw every scenario he could think of in this exotic mix
of make-believe, starting with Hitchcock’s time-honored affinity for telling
tall tales about the ‘wrong man’ – this one, a truly inspired case of ‘mistaken
identity’ and wed to diplomatic intrigues, sexual extortion, and devious role play.
While Lehman summoned all of his creative juices for
this knotty spy thriller, he nevertheless did not lose sight of the best
moments to infuse it with humor. For all its devastatingly high-spirited action
sequences, North by Northwest is almost as well-regarded today for its
witty badinage. As example; one, immediately calls to mind the instance where
Cary Grant’s frazzled ad man, having been forced to consume a whole bottle of bourbon,
is taken to the Glencoe Police Station and administered a test to prove his
intoxication. Grant – extending his arms to illustrate the amount of alcohol he
has consumed – then, sprawls out on the table to go to sleep at the first
inference that a sample of his blood be drawn: “How disgusting!”
Throughout the picture, Grant is able to exercise his inimitable wit and charm with
equal finesse, teasing co-star, Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall into accepting
his sexual advances, playfully adding “why are you so good to me?”, and
later, mocking his would-be assassin, as he is escorted from an auction house
by police with, “Oh nice try. Better luck next time, old man!” Yet, perhaps the most charismatic bit of
unrelated comedy arrives late in the picture as Roger, determined to escape his
locked hospital room, sneaks across the sill to the next open window,
discovered by a female patient, who sternly orders him to ‘stop!’ before
sighing at her good fortune for having discovered a Cary Grant skulking about
in the dark - ostensibly, in her bedroom - and whispering, ‘stop!’ to which
Grant smugly chuckles for the camera before nimbly departing down the hall.
Given North by Northwest was made at MGM, a studio
known for its glamour treatment, it remains perhaps unsurprising Robert Boyle’s set
designs, with art direction from William A. Horning and Merrill Pye, take great
advantage and considerable artistic liberties with the locations. The Frank
Lloyd-Wright-inspired lair of the enemy, Phillip Vandamm (played with mellifluous
menace by James Mason) as example, is an implausibly elegant and conspicuous ‘hideaway’,
complete with a pot-lit landing strip, high atop Rushmore’s summit, surely to
have drawn outrage from the National Parks Service, had it actually been
located anywhere near the presidential busts, as depicted in this movie. The high
angle interior of the United Nations Building – an obvious matte, infers an air
of high-styled, brightly lit transparency to all the cloak and dagger going on
behind the scenes. But the most dramatic of these fabricated locations remains
the paper-mâché and plaster fronts, depicting a moonlit Mount Rushmore. As no
such scaling of the actual monument would have been permitted, even if all the
principals and crew had been harnessed into the proper climbing gear, authorization
instead was granted to Hitchcock to shoot the monument from a distance, but only
if no ‘acts of violence’ were depicted.
This agreement between MGM and the National Parks
Services (NPS) extended to “any simulation or mock-up of the sculpture or
talus slope.” Perhaps, in advance of
the controversy that was to dog him, Hitchcock shot – with the NPS’s permission
– a single day at Rushmore, for the cafeteria scene where Roger’s faux assassination
is staged, in addition to inserts of Roger’s body being taken away on a
stretcher, and Eve, escaping the scene in her car. And while only a few brief
shots of the actual monument could be glimpsed from the observation terrace,
Hitchcock almost immediately reneged on his promise not to recreate any acts of
violence on a ‘mock-up’ of the famed monument. Indeed, by the time these bits
were in the can, Boyle was already putting the finishing touches on their facsimile
inside a soundstage at Culver City. If, as they had been successful in detouring
Hitchcock from shooting anything extra on their home turf, the NPS had
absolutely zero authority to tell the master of suspense what he could and
could not do back in Hollywood. Hitchcock would strain the NPS’s good graces
even further when he suggested to Variety’s film critic, Alice Hughes, he had
actually ‘gotten away’ with shooting his climax on the real Mt. Rushmore – the
story, picked up and run, without first confirming the facts. In retaliation,
the NPS wrote a strong letter of regret to then studio chief, Joseph E. Vogel,
noting MGM’s blatant disregard for their pact, earlier agreed upon in good
faith. The NPS also ordered Vogel to remove the screen credit that read in part
– ‘we gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the United States Department
of the Interior and the National Park Service in the actual filming of the
scenes at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota’.
As the controversy refused to die, the NPS – finding no
satisfaction in their dealings with representatives from MGM, and, the various governing
bodies of film production and screen censorship, turned their attentions to
South Dakota's senior senator, Karl E. Mundt. And while Mundt stood on the side
of the government’s right to consider MGM’s sidestepping of their original arrangement
as a blatant desecration of the monument itself, suggesting everything from
recalling the picture to have its penultimate sequence either re-edited or
re-shot, to petitioning for new legislation to be enacted that would impose far greater
stringency on future picture-making alliances with the NPS, in the end, even
Mundt had to concede it was too late to do anything about North By Northwest,
except to buy a ticket for its general release and judge the results for
himself. In the end, Hitchcock had his
way, the movie hit theaters unaltered, and, to much critical fanfare and box
office success, and, audiences, oblivious to all this backstage bickering, were
thrilled by its climactic pursuit across the presidential faces of the famed
monument.
After the abysmal box office performance of his
psychologically complex, Vertigo (1958), Hitchcock desperately needed North
by Northwest to be a winner. It was - perhaps even beyond Hitchcock’s own
wildest dreams – falling back on his more traditional assemblage of dark sadism
and light humor to draw the audience nearer his artistry. Viewing North by
Northwest today, one is immediately struck by its impossible perfection as slick
and stylish escapist fantasy, incorporating nearly every devise from the
director’s illustrious bag of tricks. Over the years, rumors have circulated
Hitchcock unintentionally mentioned the idea for the project to James Stewart
while putting the finishing touches on Vertigo. When Stewart became
eager to play the lead Hitchcock was forced to admit he had already cast Cary
Grant. However, there are problems with this story. First, Hitchcock seldom
worked far in advance in planning his subsequent projects – preferring instead
to be wholly invested in the movie at hand, and worry about what came next only
after everything was already in the can and on its way to the premiere. In
general, but specifically at this point in his career, Hitchcock took his time
deciding what would come next. Since North by Northwest was not a
pre-sold play or movie property waiting in the wings, it seems highly unlikely
the idea would have come to him off the cuff, even in passing, while on the set
of Vertigo.
Also, given the solid working relationship between
Hitchcock and Stewart, it does not make much sense for Hitchcock to mention it
to Stewart if he had no interest in casting him. And even if Hitchcock had been
contemplating Stewart as his star, more than likely, MGM would have killed that
idea at the outset, especially after Vertigo’s poor performance at the
box office. Like Hitchcock, MGM was in a tug-o-war for a mega hit. Securing
Hitchcock’s services was one way of practically guaranteeing box office gold. Another,
was to allow the master of suspense his girth of opportunities to explore the project
on his own terms, with relative autonomy. Whatever the reason, North by
Northwest stars Cary Grant as harried ad man, Roger O. Thornhill. After
being mistaken for an FBI secret agent by Phillip Vandamm (James Mason), Roger
quickly discovers he is a sitting duck, rift for multiple assassination
attempts by Vandamm’s henchmen unless he can get to the bottom of things.
Unfortunately, Roger’s contacting of UN political analyst, Lester Townsend
(Philip Ober) – totally oblivious to the crimes being perpetrated at his summer
home in his absence - goes horribly awry when one of Vandamm’s goons, Valerian
(Adam Williams) stabs Townsend in the middle of the United Nations’ press room,
making it appear Roger is the killer. Aside: as the UN would not allow any
photography inside their headquarters, virtually all of these interiors were shot
on a sound stage at MGM. Interestingly, Hitchcock did manage to steal an
exterior shot of Cary Grant strolling up the steps of the actual UN Building.
Look closely and you will notice a bewildered onlooker suddenly doing a double-take
in his recognition of Grant.
Considered a fugitive from justice, Roger next
stumbles onto Eve Kendell (Eva Marie Saint), a mysterious flirt, traveling by
train and oddly intent on helping Roger elude both his potential captors and
the authorities. Slowly, Roger comes to trust Eve and the two have an affair.
Alas, Roger’s faith in Eve is shaken after she sets him up for a rendezvous in
the middle of nowhere, only to be accosted by a crop-dusting biplane, out to
assassinate him. Barely escaping the onslaught, and stealing a truck to drive
himself to the next scheduled port of call in Chicago, Roger learns Eve appears
to be working for Vandamm. Now, Roger confronts their motley crew during a
public auction, thereby exposing Eve to terrible danger. You see, Eve is
the FBI double agent working right under Vandamm’s nose. Intervening on her
behalf, The Professor (Leo G. Carroll – a beloved of Hitchcock’s) arrives to
explain the situation to Roger. There is only one thing to do; stage a murder –
his! In the crowded commissary near Mt. Rushmore, Roger plots a faux revenge on
Eve who, prepared for the performance, fires a pistol of blanks in the presence
of all, including Vandamm and his right-hand, Leonard (Martin Landau) before
fleeing by car. The Professor declare Roger dead, thus throwing the scent off
Vandamm’s suspicions off Eve and Roger.
Alas, not long thereafter, Leonard reasons the details
of the ruse as played and Vandamm elects, only to pretend to trust Eve, instructing
Leonard he will dispose of her over a large body of water once the plane is in
the air. Detained by the professor at a local hospital, Roger escapes and
pursues Eve to Vandamm’s retreat, nestled high above the famed landmark. Forewarning
Eve of Vandamm’s intent to murder her, Roger and Eve make their daring escape across
the presidential facades, pursued by Leonard and Valerian. In the penultimate
struggle, Valerian is tossed over the side of the monument. But Leonard manages
to intercept Roger and Eve, the couple now dangling on the edge of certain
death. Before he can finish the job, Leonard is shot by police at the Professor’s
behest, and Roger, renewed in his energies, rescues Eve, whom he whisks into
the upper birth of a train bound for New York, having at last made an honest
woman of her. In a bit of Hitchcock’s devilishly playful Freudianism, Roger and
Eve’s train barrels into a tunnel, giving the audience no illusions about the
couple’s honeymoon night.
60 years later, North by Northwest remains one
of Hitchcock’s most charming and escapist thriller/fantasies, its only real
companion piece in the master’s catalog, - 1955’s To Catch a Thief (also,
to have co-starred Cary Grant, and, also, shot in Paramount’s patented
widescreen format - VistaVision, expressly licensed by MGM for this movie). The
chemistry between Grant and Eva Marie Saint lacks the kinetic energy and sparks
of eroticism Grant shared with ‘Thief’s Grace Kelly. Indeed,
Kelly is forever ensconced to typify Hitchcock’s affinity for ‘cool blondes.’
But what Saint lacks here, she more than makes up for in her acting. While it
remains a bit of a challenge to consider what any man could possibly see in a
woman who would deliberately – if, ever so reluctantly - set him up to be
murdered by an errant crop-duster, the point is never belabored by Hitchcock or
Lehman. Indeed, they would much rather conclude on an ‘all’s well that ends
well’ scenario. Hitchcock relied heavily on matte paintings, full scale
mock-ups, and, process photography throughout North by Northwest to
sustain his make-believe magic. The movie’s two most memorable set pieces – the
biplane assault and scaling of Mt. Rushmore are elaborately staged at MGM with
an ingenious combination of full-scale foreground action and process shots projected
onto large screens. For the climax, Robert Boyle’s sketches were transformed by
MGM’s scenic art department into elaborate plaster replicas of Rushmore’s
famous faces, relying on elaborate mattes to extend the steep downward
perspective as Eve and Roger appear to be clinging from its jagged precipices.
At Hitchcock's request, MGM licensed VistaVision for North
by Northwest after he staunchly refused to comply with Vogel’s suggestion to
shoot in Cinemascope. Although the experience of making North by Northwest,
was mostly an enjoyable one for all concerned, Hitchcock would never make
another movie for MGM. North by Northwest also marked the last time Hitchcock
worked with Cary Grant – their alliance begun with 1941’s Suspicion. Rumors have since abounded as to why these two
would never again be reunited – especially since North by Northwest was,
by far, their most profitable picture together. One plausible reason is Grant
had sincerely begun to feel as though his days as a leading man were numbered.
While the actresses Grant was frequently paired with were always getting
younger, Grant was 55 in 1959. Indeed,
Grant would reluctantly agree to make only one more thriller, this one for
Stanley Donen, in full-faux Hitchcockian-style: Charade (1963). In
retrospect, North by Northwest was a huge influence on producer, Albert
R. Broccoli, rather shamelessly to borrow liberally from its bon vivant’s approach
to storytelling in his own crafting of the early James Bond adventures. In
fact, Broccoli made no bones about plying Hitchcock’s inspiration to stage his
own the helicopter attack on Sean Connery’s Bond (an homage to Hitchcock’s crop-duster)
as the climax to 1963’s From Russian With Love.
Warner Home Video’s Blu-Ray of North by Northwest
represents a meticulous restoration effort on a deep catalog title that was,
for many years, in desperate need of being resurrected. The color palette here,
exudes some truly remarkable saturation levels – VistaVision’s claim of motion
picture hi-fidelity on full display. Flesh tones are very satisfying, Grant’s
sun-kissed brownish tint is complimented by Eva Marie Saint’s silky peaches and
cream skin. It is the subtleties in color that count the most here – the soft
silvery glint of metallic wallpaper in Eve’s hotel room that previously
registered as garish robin egg blue, or the rich velvety sheen of Eve’s
burgundy-and-black cocktail frock. When the crop-duster nosedives into the
oncoming tanker truck during its aerial assault, the resultant fireball it
releases flickers in vibrant shades of crimson/orange flame, accompanied by
deep acrid plumes of smoke. The image here is – in a word – delicious! Contrast
is excellent. There is a slight patina of film grain looking very indigenous to
its source. The remastered 5.1 Dolby
Digital audio is another welcomed upgrade; crisper, cleaner and more finely
balanced. VistaVision contained no place for a true stereo soundtrack, but the
original mono stems do exist, allowing for a thorough remix of Bernard Herrmann’s
memorable main titles and score. Extras have all been ported over from the DVD
release and include an audio commentary by Ernest Lehman. We also get Eva-Marie
Saint hosting a ‘making of’ documentary, the extensive bio on Cary Grant – ‘A Class
Apart’. This was originally an extra on Warner’s 2-disc DVD of Bringing Up
Baby. It is gratifying to have it reinstated here. There are also several
newly created featurettes on the making of the movie and Hitchcock's prowess as
a director. Bottom line: given the lavishly appointed goodies on tap and the
immaculate restoration effort – do we really need to add…very – very – highly recommended!
FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)
5+
VIDEO/AUDIO
5+
EXTRAS
5+
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