Reasonable minds can disagree as to which Alfred Hitchcock movie was his best. Rear Window
from 1954 is always in the conversation. How many directors besides
Hitch could keep us interested in a main character who is confined to a
wheelchair and spends most of the time gazing out his apartment window?
The beautiful Grace Kelly gracing the screen no doubt helps keep the
interest level high. If building atmospheric scenes is your cup of tea,
you might vote for Vertigo (1958). I remember after first
seeing that movie I had a dream about the haunting Kim Novak, and not in
a good way. There was a time in my life when I thought The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) was the most entertaining movie by any
director that I'd ever seen. The climax in London's Albert Hall -- yep, the same Albert Hall mentioned in the Beatles' A Day In The Life -- is
spine tingling. By the way, the three aforementioned movies all starred
Jimmy Stewart. Psycho (scanned January 7, 2015; A-) was
groundbreaking and controversial, a horror story of sorts without
ghosts, zombies or digitized monsters. And in my pre-blog days I
bestowed an A on Dial M For Murder, thus anointing it one of the top forty films I've ever had the pleasure of viewing.
If you selected as your top choice one of those five Hitchcock dramas -- or even a different one such as The 39 Steps (1935) or Rebecca
(1940) -- I would not dump your seven dollar bucket of buttered popcorn
over your head, although all bets are off if you prefer 1963's The Birds (scanned January 7, 2015; C). But the one Hitchcock film I put on the throne is North By Northwest
from 1959. I have watched Cary Grant, James Mason and Eva Marie Saint
in that intriguing cold war thriller more than a half dozen times.
Grant
plays Roger Thornhill, a smooth, suave Manhattan advertising executive
who is usually seen in a Brooks Brothers suit, regardless of the
occasion. Mason is Phillip Vandamm, equally smooth and suave, who is
covertly under surveillance by the US Intelligence Agency, a government
agency similar to the FBI. The agency is headed by The Professor (Leo
G. Carroll). Vandamm is suspected of carrying on some dastardly deeds,
like spying, smuggling or drug running. The government isn't sure
exactly what, and therefore waiting for just the right moment to pounce.
Vandamm
and his henchmen kidnap Thornhill, mistakenly believing he is a rival
named George Kaplan, notwithstanding protestations by Thornhill. The ad
man is able to escape from the bad guys' clutches, but not without
running afoul of the law. Even his own mother, Clara (the feisty and
funny Jessie Royce Landis), doesn't believe his incredible version of
what transpired. Thus, the nattily attired Thornhill has both the cops
and Vandamm's men after him. Along the way he encounters Eve Kendall
(Saint), who is….; well, I'll leave it to you to figure out that
character. The scenes shift from Manhattan to the New York Central
Railroad to Chicago, then Indiana and back to Chicago, and finally South
Dakota.
What sets North By Northwest
apart from those other Hitchcock classics? I am going to list two
important attributes plus the unique icing on the cake. But before I do
so, I must concede that the plot has at least one gaping flaw of the
type which usually turns me off to a story as a whole. Thornhill, while
on the run from both the cops and Vandamm, must get from New York to
Chicago discretely yet quickly in order to confront the mysterious Mr.
Kaplan. The ticketless Thornhill opts for the train, but until he makes
a mad dash past the entry gate conductor in Grand Central Station,
there is a strong likelihood he will not get on board. Wouldn't you
know it? Vandamm and the boys are on the same train! How did they know
Thornhill was going to be on that train when, moments before the train
pulls out of the station, Thornhill himself didn't even know?
Now for those favorable attributes.
The Male Leads:
In 1959 both Grant and Mason were established film stars with
impressive resumes. Both hailed from England and possessed that certain
je ne sais quoi enabling them to convert rather mundane lines into
quotable colloquy. Supplement that talent with their handsomeness, fine
tailored suits, smooth buttery British accents and a natural flair, and
you have the makings of a combination for the ages. The scenes in
which these two superbly skilled actors are paired is cinema at its
best.
The Humor: Secondly we have the
humor, with kudos and a standing O for script writer Ernest Lehman. We
like Thornhill immediately when, in the movie's opening scene, he cracks
a couple of good one-liners to his secretary, Maggie (Doreen Lang), in a
taxi. "In the world of advertising there's no such thing as a lie --
only expedient exaggeration." A few minutes later, after instructing
Maggie to call his mother with dinner plans when Maggie gets back to the
office: "Tell her I'm having two drinks at the Oak Room, so she doesn't
need to smell my breath."
More humor from Grant's character:
To Eve Kendall on the train: "Tell me, what do you do besides lure men to their doom on the 20th Century Limited?"
To Eve, kissing her in the Pullman car: "[I have good] taste in women; I like your flavor."
To Eve in a hotel room: "How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?"
To
The Professor on an airport tarmac: "Now wait a minute, you listen to
me. I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a
secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders dependent on
me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself slightly
killed."
The Unforgettable Scenes:
Finally, as promised, the icing on the cake, a theory of mine after
pondering the issue over a few adult beverages, not including a Gibson
(Thornhill's favorite cocktail).
Most films do
not have any individual scene that has lasted in the public's collective
memory over a multi-year span. But think about some famous movies
which do contain an iconic scene: The car chase in Bullitt (1968); the Normandy Beach landing in Saving Private Ryan (1998); farting around the camp fire in Blazing Saddles (1974); the ear carving in Reservoir Dogs (1992); the shower scene in Hitch's Psycho.
All of these scenes have two things in common. First, when you see or
hear one of those movie titles, your thoughts immediately go to that
famous scene. The word associations are practically instinctive.
Second, each is by far the most memorable scene in its respective film.
In some cases, it's hard to come up with any other scene.
North By Northwest
does not fit that description. Why? Because it is one of only a
handful of films -- and arguably the only Hitchcock film -- which
contains two epic scenes which have been inextricably linked to
the movie. Those two scenes are the Indiana crop dusting scene and the
Mount Rushmore finale. Each of those two scenes lasts only about five minutes, yet they are historic. It is impossible to think of North By Northwest without recalling, and marveling at, those sequences.
Here are the movies I've watched in the comfort of The Quentin Estates during the second quarter of 2015.
1.
Colorado Territory (1949 western; Joel McCrea busts out of jail and
hooks up with fellow bad guys to pull off one last heist, not at all
planning to be distracted by earthy Texan Virginia Mayo or genteel
Georgian Dorothy Malone.) A
3. How To Marry A Millionaire (1953 comedy; Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable are three poor models who rent a luxury Manhattan apartment as part of a scheme to find and marry rich men.) C
4.
LA Confidential (1997 drama; in a corrupt LA police department, Guy
Pearce is the baby-faced politician who aspires to climb the ladder,
Kevin Spacey is a narcotics detective with connections to a Dragnet-type
of television show and a tabloid magazine, and Russell Crowe is a tough
guy who doesn't mind bending the rules to put a suspect behind bars.) A
5.
Last Days In Viet Nam (2014 documentary; the US Army and American
embassy staff leave Saigon as the North Viet Nam enemy is on the march,
and in the process of evacuation many South Vietnamese who had helped
the US are deceitfully left behind.) A
6. Mean Streets (1973
drama; Harvey Keitel is a small time hood in NYC, under the thumb of his
mafia uncle who warns him to distance himself from his deadbeat friend
Robert De Niro.) C
8. A Place In The Sun (1951 drama; Montgomery Clift wants to ditch plain and pregnant Shelly Winters so he can take up with socialite glamour girl Elizabeth Taylor.) B-
9. The Sundowners (1960 Australian western; Robert Mitchum enjoys the nomadic life of an itinerant sheep drover, but wife Deborah Kerr is ready to settle down on a ranch.) B+
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