Bloomberg: Cary Grant Clings to Abe’s Nose in ‘Northwest’ An

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Cary Grant Clings to Abe’s Nose in ‘Northwest’ Anniversary DVD

Review by Peter Rainer

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- When asked to name my favorite movie, my answer is usually “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s exhilarating 1959 thriller. Warner Home Video recently marked the film’s 50th anniversary by releasing a remastered two-disc collection with oodles of extras.

The title may derive from “Hamlet,” but this is one of the least stage-bound movies ever made.

As a debonair Madison Avenue executive mistaken for a U.S. intelligence agent by James Mason’s gang of murderous foreign spies, Cary Grant is hunted across a compass-spinning array of locations. He scurries from New York’s Plaza hotel and United Nations headquarters to the plains of Indiana, the forests of South Dakota and, most memorably, Mount Rushmore, where he and Eva Marie Saint, playing a blond Mata Hari, cling for dear life from what appears to be Abe Lincoln’s nostril.

Compared with other Hitchcock masterpieces of trauma like “The Wrong Man” (1956), “Vertigo” (1958) and “Psycho” (1960), “North by Northwest” is relatively lightweight. Still, no suspense thriller ever carried its weight more gracefully.

The film showcases, in frothier fashion, Hitchcock’s abiding obsessions: The horror of the innocent being mistaken for the guilty, the fetishistic fascination with cool blondes, the pathological fear of police and the nightmare of losing your identity.

Kelly’s Knife

In one of the documentaries produced for this DVD, the Mexican director Guillermo del Toro (“Pan’s Labyrinth”) remarks how Hitchcock “filmed murder scenes as if they were love scenes.” To illustrate, we are shown examples from “Dial M for Murder” (Grace Kelly knifing her strangler) and “Strangers on a Train” (Robert Walker pursuing his prey through the tunnel of love in an amusement park).

Curtis Hanson, who has promoted Hitchock’s legacy as much as any American director except Brian De Palma, discusses how so many of the Master’s macabre moments play like comedy.

In an insulting corporate move, the DVD documentaries only reference Hitchcock movies owned by the Warner library. No mention is made of “Rear Window,” “Vertigo,” “Psycho” or “The Birds.”

It surely would have been useful to cite Hitchcock’s famous quote about “Psycho”: “To me it’s a fun picture.” And even though Camille Paglia is interviewed -- she talks incisively about Hitchcock’s affinity for silent-movie storytelling -- you’d never know that she once wrote a terrific short book on “The Birds.”

Crop-Duster Scene

There’s still plenty to savor. William Friedkin says “North by Northwest” epitomizes Hitchcock’s view of cinema as “life with all the dull parts cut out.” Hanson, singling out the film’s famed crop-duster scene, talks about how the shots “feel inevitable -- there can be no other shot.”

We find out that Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Grant’s mother in the film, was only a year older than he was. We also learn that Grant, canny businessman that he was, charged his fans 15 cents for an autograph.

Warner’s best coup was getting Saint to appear in and narrate one of the documentaries. Still radiant at 85, she offers up one amusing Hitchcock anecdote after another.

Hitchcock is often derided for having supposedly said that “actors are cattle,” although he always claimed that what he actually said was “actors are like cattle.” In any case, actors loved him, and often gave him their most iconic performances.

Just think of Walker in “Strangers on a Train,” Grant in “Notorious,” “To Catch a Thief,” and “North by Northwest”, Anthony Perkins in “Psycho” or James Stewart in “Vertigo.” Saint was never more shimmeringly romantic than in “North by Northwest,” and the only direction Hitchcock gave her was: “Lower your voice, don’t use your hands, and always look into Cary’s eyes.”

(Peter Rainer is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own).

To contact the writer responsible for this story: Peter Rainer at Fi1L2E(at)aol.com.
Last Updated: January 5, 2010 00:01 EST