NORTH BY NORTHWEST
Of all the Hitchcock-Grant partnerships, the one most often celebrated is North By Northwest (1959), not in small part because of the amazing crop-duster scene in the middle of the film, as well as the equally phenomenal Mount Rushmore sequences near the end. In this, the final appearance of Grant in a Hitchcock motion picture, Cary is partnered with Eva Marie Saint, an at best competent actress whose intrigue is, once again, hinged upon being someone other than whom she purports to be. That's fair because, again, Grant's character, Roger Thornhill, is hardly what he is taken for either. Thornhill is a rude, hustling advertising executive who gets mistaken--why, we are never certain--as a secret agent named Kaplan. Hitchcock takes the Things Are Not What They Seem motif farther with each frame, culminating in the revelation that there actually is no such person known as Kaplan. When the Kaplan impersonator is framed for murder, the real government agents realize someone has made a bit of a mistake.
This would all be nothing more than a well-played exercise in comedy were it not for the magnificent sinister purpose of James Mason, who plays Phillip, the man to whom Eva Marie Saint is wed and the man who of course must arrange her untimely demise because Leonard, the psychotic assistant (Martin Landau), says he must. The bad guys here threaten to steal the show, but when they come face to face with Grant (and the four heads of stone), they haven't much of a chance.
For my money, the best scene in the movie is the one where suspense and mean-spirited humor merge like a train into a cattle barn: the auction scene. Once again, it doesn't matter what the material objects are. The importance is the story--and the players.
Of all the Hitchcock-Grant partnerships, the one most often celebrated is North By Northwest (1959), not in small part because of the amazing crop-duster scene in the middle of the film, as well as the equally phenomenal Mount Rushmore sequences near the end. In this, the final appearance of Grant in a Hitchcock motion picture, Cary is partnered with Eva Marie Saint, an at best competent actress whose intrigue is, once again, hinged upon being someone other than whom she purports to be. That's fair because, again, Grant's character, Roger Thornhill, is hardly what he is taken for either. Thornhill is a rude, hustling advertising executive who gets mistaken--why, we are never certain--as a secret agent named Kaplan. Hitchcock takes the Things Are Not What They Seem motif farther with each frame, culminating in the revelation that there actually is no such person known as Kaplan. When the Kaplan impersonator is framed for murder, the real government agents realize someone has made a bit of a mistake.
This would all be nothing more than a well-played exercise in comedy were it not for the magnificent sinister purpose of James Mason, who plays Phillip, the man to whom Eva Marie Saint is wed and the man who of course must arrange her untimely demise because Leonard, the psychotic assistant (Martin Landau), says he must. The bad guys here threaten to steal the show, but when they come face to face with Grant (and the four heads of stone), they haven't much of a chance.
For my money, the best scene in the movie is the one where suspense and mean-spirited humor merge like a train into a cattle barn: the auction scene. Once again, it doesn't matter what the material objects are. The importance is the story--and the players.
