North By Northwest...Or What I Can Remember Of It...

It's been quite a while since I have wrote something on this blog. I started off with good intentions but then like every project I start I get lazy and before you know it BAM! It's a new year and your blog still only has 2 followers...


We must power on children! For the sake of film history and random rattles on about nothing!


Have you ever been run down by a plane? ...Ive been on a rundown plane....cheap QANTAS joke HAHAHA....moving on. Wells one leathery skinned Cary Grant almost gets run down by a plane in Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 thriller NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

Middle-aged Madison Avenue advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Grant) is mistaken for a government agent by a gang of spies. He gets involved in a series of misadventures and is pursued across the States by both the spies and the government whilst being helped by a beautiful blonde.

Now I watched this film a while back and then forgot to blog about it but from what I can remember...it was pretty figgin' sweet! I wouldn't say that this is one of Hitchcock's most imaginative or groundbreaking films, but it's a great thrill ride with plenty of action and adventure...and hot, blonde women...like boner hot! But then you stop and think, "Wait a minute! This boner hot chick is probably like an old woman now or even a rotting corpse...", and then your mood is ruined and you don't really feel like watching a movie anymore so you go to your room and cry.

But the movie is filled with some of Hitchcock's most memorable scenes. The famous crop dusting plane scene and the Mount Rushmore chase are terrific and have been since parodied in shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy. The film is so crammed with memorable passages that one hardly notices it's 136 mins long.

James Mason is terrific! He manages to play a bad guy you just cant help but feeling sorry for! And I could listen to that man read the telephone book! BEST VOICE EVER! Sorry...where was I?

One fact from this movie has always stuck with me. In the scene where we see Cary Grant standing outside the United Nation building, Hitchcock couldn't actually get permission to film the UN, so Hitch mounted a camera inside a delivery van and got Grant to walk around the UN steps until he got his shot. In the film you can actually see UN security carefully watching Grant...maybe trying to figure out what he's doing?

I was thoroughly entertained by this film. I didn't pay to much attention to the techniques or film language within it, but I guess that's a marker of a truly engrossing and endearing film. Be sure to keep an eye out for Hitch's cameo; Hitchcock arrives at a bus stop (during the opening credits) but gets there a second too late and the door is closed in his face.

Between you and me...with the ammount of weight Hitchcock was carrying...he was kidding himself if he thought he was gonna make that bus!