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Home , Edward Binns, George Tomasini, Graham Cutts, Jessie Royce Landis, One Spy Too Many, Robert Burks

September 21, 2010 (XXI:4) , (1959, 131 min)

Directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Ernest Lehman Original Music by Bernard Herrmann Cinematography by Robert Burks Film Editing by George Tomasini

Cary Grant...Roger O. Thornhill Eva Marie Saint...Eve Kendall James Mason...Phillip Vandamm Jessie Royce Landis...Clara Thornhill Leo G. Carroll...The Professor Josephine Hutchinson...Mrs. Townsend Philip Ober...Lester Townsend Martin Landau...Leonard Adam Williams...Valerian Edward Platt...Victor Larrabee Robert Ellenstein...Licht Les Tremayne...Auctioneer Philip Coolidge...Dr. Cross Patrick McVey...Sergeant Flamm Edward Binns...Captain Junket 1939, 1938, Sabotage 1936, Secret Agent 1936, Ken Lynch...Charley - Chicago Policeman The 39 Steps 1935, The Man Who Knew Too Much 1934, The Skin Alfred Hitchcock...Man Who Misses Bus Game 1931, The Shame of Mary Boyle 1930, Easy Virtue 1928, The Carleton Young...Fanning Nelson Farmer's Wife 1928, and : A Story of the Fog 1927. He was also associated in various ways with the long-running Oscar nominations for art direction, editing, screenplay. National tv series, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” 1955-61. Film Registry 1995. ERNEST LEHMAN (8 December 1915, New York City—2 July ALFRED HITCHCOCK (13 August 2005, Los Angeles, ) wrote 22 films, among them Black 1899, Leytonstone, London, Sunday 1977, 1976, Portnoy's Complaint 1972, Hello, England—29 April 1980, Bel Air, Dolly! 1969, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966, The Sound of Los Angeles, California) directed 67 Music 1965, The Prize 1963, West Side Story 1961, From the films and tv series, the last of which Terrace 1960 , North by Northwest 1959, Sweet Smell of Success was Family Plot 1976. Some of the 1957, Somebody Up There Likes Me 1956, The King and I 1956, others were 1972, Topaz 1969, Lux Video Theatre 1955 TV, The Ford Television Theatre 1954 TV, 1966, Marnie 1964, The Sabrina 1954, Executive Suite 1954, and The Inside Story 1948. He Birds 1963, Psycho 1960, North by also produced 3 films Portnoy's Complaint, Hello, Dolly!, Who's Northwest 1959, Vertigo 1958, The Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and directed one Portnoy's Complaint. Man Who Knew Too Much 1956, 1955, 1954, 1954, BERNARD HERRMANN (29 June 1911, New York City, New York Strangers on a Train 1951, Rope 1948, The Paradine Case 1947, —24 December 1975, North Hollywood, California) composed Notorious 1946, Spellbound 1945, Lifeboat 1944, Shadow of a scores for 77 films and tv programs and series, among them Doubt 1943, Saboteur 1942, Suspicion 1941, Mr. & Mrs. Smith Obsession 1976, Taxi Driver 1976, It's Alive 1974, Sisters 1973, 1941, Foreign Correspondent 1940, Rebecca 1940, Jamaica Inn Endless Night 1972, La mariée était en noir/The Bride Wore Black Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—2

1968, Fahrenheit 451 1966, “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour” 1963- EVA MARIE SAINT (4 July 1965, “Kraft Theatre” 1964, Marnie 1964, “Twilight 1924, Newark, New Zone” 1959-1963, Jason and the Argonauts 1963, Cape Fear 1962, Jersey) was in 74 films and Tender Is the Night 1962, Mysterious Island 1961, Psycho 1960, TV series, among them Journey to the Center of the Earth 1959, North by Northwest 1959, Superman Returns 2006, “For Better or Worse” 1959, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 1958, The “Frasier” 1999, Mariette in Naked and the Dead 1958, Vertigo 1958, A Hatful of Rain 1957, Ecstasy 1996, My Antonia 1956, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 1956, The 1995, Voyage of Terror: Kentuckian 1955, Prince of Players 1955, The Egyptian 1954, The Achille Lauro Affair Garden of Evil 1954, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef 1953, White Witch 1990, “Moonlighting” 1986-1988, “The Love Boat” 1983-1984, Doctor 1953, The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1952, 5 Fingers 1952, On The Stalking Moon 1968, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Dangerous Ground 1952, The Day the Earth Stood Still 1951, The Are Coming 1966, The Sandpiper 1965, Exodus 1960, North by Ghost and Mrs. Muir 1947, Anna and the King of Siam 1946, Jane Northwest 1959, Raintree County 1957, A Hatful of Rain 1957, Eyre 1943, The Magnificent Ambersons 1942, All That Money Can That Certain Feeling 1956, “The Philco-Goodyear Television Buy 1941, and Citizen Kane 1941. He won one Oscar (All That Playhouse” 1953-1954, On the Waterfront 1954, “One Man's Money Can Buy) and was nominated for four others (Obsession, Family” 1949, “The Prudential Family Playhouse” 1950, “Actor's Taxi Drive, Anna and the King of Siam, and Citizen Kane). Studio” 1949-1950, and “A Christmas Carol” 1947.

ROBERT BURKS (4 July 1909, Chino, California – 13 May 1968, JAMES MASON (15 May 1909, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England, Newport Beach, California) was cinematographer on 46 films, some UK—27 July 1984, Lausanne, Switzerland, heart attack) acted in of which are Waterhole #3 1967, A Patch of Blue 1965, Once a 151 films, some of which were The Assisi Underground (1985), The Thief 1965, Marnie 1964, The Birds 1963, The Music Man 1962, Shooting Party (1985), Yellowbeard (1983), (1982), The Great Impostor 1961, The Rat Race 1960, But Not for Me 1959, Socrates (1982), Salem's Lot (1979), (1979), The North by Northwest 1959, Vertigo 1958, The Spirit of St. Louis Boys from Brazil (1978), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Cross of Iron 1957, The Wrong Man 1956, The Vagabond King 1956, The Man (1977), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Mandingo (1975), Gente di Who Knew Too Much 1956, The Trouble with Harry 1955, To rispetto/The Flower in His Mouth (1975), Frankenstein: The True Catch a Thief 1955, Rear Window 1954, Dial M for Murder 1954, Story (1973), The MacKintosh Man (1973), The Last of Sheila Hondo 1953, The Desert Song 1953, House of Wax 1953, Strangers (1973), The Sea Gull (1968), Mayerling (1968), Georgy Girl on a Train 1951, The Glass Menagerie 1950, Beyond the Forest (1966), The Blue Max (1966), "Dr. Kildare" (4 episodes, 1965), 1949, The Fountainhead 1949, The Verdict 1946, Escape in the Genghis Khan (1965), Lord Jim (1965), The Pumpkin Eater (1964), Desert 1945, Make Your Own Bed 1944, and Jammin' the Blues The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), Lolita (1962), The Trials of 1944. He also did special effects for 32 films, among them The Oscar Wilde (1960), "Playhouse 90" (5 episodes, 1957-1960), Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima 1952, John Loves Mary 1949, Smart Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959), North by Northwest Girls Don't Talk 1948, Key Largo 1948, Possessed 1947, The (1959), Island in the Sun (1957), Forever, Darling (1956), 20000 Verdict 1946, The Big Sleep 1946, Night and Day 1946, Pride of the Leagues Under the Sea (1954), A Star Is Born (1954), Prince Marines 1945, The Horn Blows at Midnight 1945, God Is My Co- Valiant (1954), The Man Between (1953), Julius Caesar (1953), Pilot 1945, Arsenic and Old Lace 1944, Kings Row 1942, Dr. The Desert Rats (1953), Charade (1953), The Prisoner of Zenda Ehrlich's Magic Bullet 1940, On Your Toes 1939, and Marked (1952), The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951), Pandora and Woman 1937. the Flying Dutchman (1951), Madame Bovary (1949), Odd Man (18 January 1904, Out (1947), The Seventh Veil (1945), Horfield, Bristol, England—29 Fanny by Gaslight/Man of Evil November 1986, Davenport, (1944), Secret Mission (1942), The Iowa) was in 73 films, some of Night Has Eyes (1942), I Met a which were Walk Don't Run Murderer (1939), Bees on the Boat- 1966, Father Goose 1964, Deck (1939), The Moon in the Charade 1963, Operation Yellow River (1938), Cyrano de Petticoat 1959, North by Bergerac (1938), Return of the Northwest 1959, Indiscreet Scarlet Pimpernel (1937), Fire Over 1958, Kiss Them for Me 1957, England (1937), The Mill on the The Pride and the Passion 1957, Floss (1937), Secret of Stamboul An Affair to Remember 1957, To (1936), Late Extra (1935). Catch a Thief 1955, I Was a Male War Bride 1949, Mr. Blandings Nominated Oscar: Best Actor in a Leading Role- A Star Is Born Builds His Dream House 1948, The Bishop's Wife 1947, The (1955); Nominated Oscar: Best Actor in a Supporting Role- Georgy Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer 1947, Notorious 1946, Night and Girl (1967); Nominated Oscar: Best Actor in a Supporting Role- Day 1946, Arsenic and Old Lace 1944, Destination Tokyo 1943, The Verdict (1983). Suspicion 1941, The Story 1940, His Girl Friday 1940, Only Angels Have Wings 1939, Gunga Din 1939, Bringing LEO G. CARROLL (25 October 1886, Weedon, England—16 Up Baby 1938, Topper 1937, Alice in Wonderland 1933, Madame October 1972, Hollywood, California) appeared in 74 films and TV Butterfly 1932, Blonde Venus 1932, Sinners in the Sun 1932, and series. Some of them were “Ironside” 1970, “The Man from This Is the Night 1932. U.N.C.L.E.” 1964-1968, “The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.” 1966-1967, One Spy Too Many 1966, That Funny Feeling 1965, The Prize Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—3

1963, “Going My Way” 1962-1963, “Alcoa Premiere” 1961 TV, from World Film Directors, Vol. I. Edited by John Wakeman. H. North by Northwest 1959, “Shirley Temple Theatre” 1958, We're W. Wilson Co NY 1987, entry by Philip Kemp No Angels 1955, “Topper” 1953-55, Young Bess 1953, The Bad and Anglo-American director, producer and scenarist, born in the Beautiful 1952, The Snows of Kilimanjaro 1952, The Desert Leytonstone, at that time a village on the outskirts of London. He Fox: The Story of Rommel 1951, Strangers on a Train 1951, Father was the third and youngest child of William Hitchcock, a green of the Bride 1950, The Paradine Case 1947, Forever Amber 1947, grocer and poulterer, and his wife Emma (born Whalen). Spellbound 1945, The House on 92nd Street 1945, Suspicion 1941, Hitchcock’s father seems to have been a stern rather distant figure; Scotland Yard 1941, Charlie Chan's Murder Cruise 1940, Rebecca his mother he recalled as a placid woman, “shaped like a cottage 1940, Essex and Elizabeth 1939, Wuthering Heights 1939, A loaf.” Both his parents were Catholics, and he grew up in what he Christmas Carol 1938, The Barretts of Wimpole Street 1934, and later depicted as a somewhat stifling atmosphere of working-class Sadie McKee 1934. respectability and strict Catholic morality. “I was what is known as a well-behaved child. At family MARTIN LANDAU (20 June gatherings I would sit quietly in a 1928, Brooklyn, New York) has corner, saying nothing….I played been in 162 films, and TV by myself, inventing my own series and programs. Now 82, games.” One such game was to he’s still going strong, with two travel over every route served by films in production: A Fighting London Omnibus Company. Chance 2010 and Mysteria It was also to childhood 2011. Some of his other roles experiences that Hitchcock were in Finding Grandma 2010, attributed the insistent fear of Ivory 2010, “Without a Trace” punishment and the processes of 2004-2009, “Entourage” 2006- law that pervades his films. A 2008, City of Ember 2008, much-retailed anecdote relates how, Harrison Montgomery 2008, when he was about five and had Lovely, Still 2008, David & Fatima 2008, An Existential Affair committed some childish misdemeanor, his father sent him to the 2006, “The Evidence” 2006, Hollywood Homicide 2003, The local police station with a note. The sergeant read it, then locked the Majestic 2001, Shiner 2000, Very Mean Men 2000, The New boy in a cell for five minutes or so, saying, “This is what we do to Adventures of Pinocchio 1999, Bonanno: A Godfather's Story 1999, naughty boys.” Hitchcock’s preoccupation with guilt may have Rounders 1998, The X Files 1998, The Adventures of Pinocchio been further developed by his education, from 1908 onwards, at St. 1996, “Spider-Man” 1995-96, Ed Wood 1994, Mistress 1992, “By Ignatius College, Stamford Hill, where the Jesuit fathers dispensed Dawn's Early Light” 1990, Crimes and Misdemeanors 1989, corporal punishment with pious rigor. “It wasn’t done casually, you Tucker: The Man and His Dream 1988, Run If You Can 1987, know. It was rather like the execution of a sentence….You spent the Empire State 1987, “The Twilight Zone” 1985, “The Harlem whole day waiting for the sentence to be carried out.” Not that he Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island” 1981, Meteor 1979, “Columbo” was often in trouble; he seems to have been a shy, quiet, slightly 1973, They Call Me MISTER Tibbs! 1970, “Mission: Impossible” melancholy child, academically adequate but undistinguished, and 1966-69, The Greatest Story Ever Told 1965, Cleopatra 1963, The with no aptitude for games. Untouchables 1959-61, “Shirley When Hitchcock was Temple Theatre” 1960, fourteen his father died. A few “Playhouse 90” 1959, North by months earlier he had left school, Northwest 1959, Pork Chop aware of no particular vocation, Hill 1959, “Lawman” 1958, but with a talent for drawing and a “Maverick” 1958, and vague interest in things “Armstrong Circle Theatre” mechanical. On the strength of this 1956. he was sent to the London School of Engineering and Navigation, JESSIE ROYCE LANDIS (25 where he studied mechanics, November 1896, Chicago, electricity, acoustics, and Illinois—2 February 1972, navigation. His training Danbury, ) completed, he took a job with the appeared in 37 films and TV W.T. Henley Telegraph Company episodes and series, among them “Columbo” (1971), “Ironside” as a technical clerk, and stayed there throughout the First World (1969-1971), Airport (1970), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1965), War. (He was turned down for active service on medical grounds, Gidget Goes to Rome (1963), “Thriller” (1960), “Alfred Hitchcock being then, as he would always remain, considerably overweight.) Presents” (1960), A Private's Affair (1959), North by Northwest After some years of boredom checking estimates, his graphic skills (1959), I Married a Woman (1958), My Man Godfrey (1957), The got him transferred to the company’s advertising department, where Girl He Left Behind (1956), To Catch a Thief (1955), “Armstrong the work was a good deal more interesting. But by now his sights Circle Theatre” (1953-1955), “The Gulf Playhouse” (1953), My were set on a job in the movie industry. Foolish Heart (1949), “Actor's Studio” (1949), It Happens Every As a child Hitchcock had been taken on numerous Spring (1949), Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949), At Your enjoyable visits to both the cinema and the theatre, but had always Service (1930). preferred the cinema. From the age of sixteen or so he began to study film journals—the trade and technical press, rather than the Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—4 fan magazines—and realized that filmmaking was what he really own description “an uncommonly unattractive young man,” not just wanted to do. His chance came in 1919, when he heard that Famous inexperienced but almost totally ignorant in sexual matters. On the Players-Lasky (later to become Paramount) were opening a studio boat returning to England he and Alma Reville became engaged. in Islington, North London. Hitchcock designed a number of , whose chaotic sex life interfered drawings suitable for illustrating title-cards and took them around to considerably with his directorial duties, was by now becoming the studio. The management were impressed enough to offer him resentful of Hitchcock. The “wonder boy,” he complained, was some commissioned work and soon after a full-time job. getting far too much credit on his (Cutts’) films, and he refused to Over the next two years Hitchcock designed title-cards for use him any more. Most studio bosses would have mollified their a dozen features produced at the Islington Studios, while also top director by firing the younger man on the spot. Balcon instead serving the informal apprenticeship in every aspect of filmmaking offered Hitchcock a picture of his own to direct. that formed the basis of his formidable technique. Nearly all the Not, admittedly, that it was much of a picture. The other personnel, and the working arrangements, were American— Pleasure Garden (1925) was to be another German coproduction, giving him, he always said, a professional head start over most of but not with the prestigious UFA; rather, with a shoestring Munich his compatriots. “All my early training was American, which was company called Emelka. …More than once Hitchcock was reduced far superior to the British.” Being bright, industrious, and willing, to borrowing money from his actors and crew in order to continue Hitchcock soon found himself designing, editing, and even shooting. Nonetheless, with the help of Alma Reville as his directing. “Sometimes when an extra scene was needed—but not an assistant director, he managed to get the film completed. Balcon acting scene—they would let me shoot was pleased with the result, remarking it.” that it looked less like a German picture Famous Players-Lasky soon than an American one, which Hitchcock discovered—as most other Hollywood took as high praise. He and Alma stayed studios would—that there was very little in Germany to make another film, a financial or artistic advantage in running melodrama set in the hills of Kentucky a UK-based operation, and pulled out in and called (1926). 1922, renting out the Islington studios to This is the only Hitchcock feature of various independent production which no print seems to have survived; companies. It was one of these that gave according to its director, it was “a very Hitchcock his first chance to direct, on a bad movie.” two-reel melodrama known either as Hitchcock returned to London as Number Thirteen or Mrs. Peabody. a young director of promise. The Pleasure Whatever its title, it was never completed Garden had been cordially received by and has since vanished—no great loss the critics, though not yet released. The according to Hitchcock. He also helped Mountain Eagle was yet to be shown. complete a one-reel comedy, Always Tell Meanwhile he began to work on what he Your Wife; the star, Seymour Hicks, had always referred to as “the first true parted company with the original Hitchcock movie.” The Lodger (1926) director, and finished off the film with was based on a novel by Mrs. Belloc Hitchcock’s assistance. Lowndes inspired by the In 1923 a new company called killings. A mysterious, taciturn young Balcon-Saville-Freedman moved into the man takes rooms with a London family, Islington studios. It was headed by who gradually come to suspect him of and Victor Saville, both at the start of their being the Ripper. And so he is—at least in the original novel. But cinematic careers; with them they brought their star director, had been signed to play the lead in the film, and since Graham Cutts. On the strength of his experience with Hicks, it was unthinkable that the elegant young matinee idol should play a Hitchcock was hired as assistant director and assigned to work with deranged killer, the ending was changed. The Stranger, pursued Cutts on the company’s first picture, Woman to Woman. He also through the streets by a baying, bloodthirsty crowd, proves to be not volunteered to write the script and serve as art director. The the Ripper but the brother of one of his victims, seeking to unmask responsibilities of editing and script continuity (generally handled his sister’s killer. He thus becomes the first incarnation of that by one person in those days) were taken by a young woman named classic figure, the wrongfully accused innocent, Alma Reville hounded and hunted by a self-righteous society. Little of Cutts’ silent work has survived; by all accounts he The Lodger also contains much else that anticipates the was a competent if uninspired director. Hitchcock worked with him later Hitchcock, including the first of his celebrated brief onscreen on three more films, one of which, (1925) , was appearances. (In time, this would become a teasing personal filmed in Germany as a coproduction with UFA. On a neighboring trademark; but on this occasion it seems that another extra was set at Neubabelsberg Murnau was shooting Der letzte Mann, and needed to swell a scene or two and the director stood in for want of Hitchcock took every opportunity to watch him at work. “The Last anyone else.) The technical ingenuity that distinguishes, and Laugh was almost the perfect film. It told its story …entirely by the occasionally overpowers, his subsequent work is already on display: use of imagery, and that had a tremendous influence on me….My at one juncture, as the family gazes suspiciously upwards, the solid models were forever after the German filmmakers of 1924 and ceiling dissolves to one of glass, revealing their lodger’s obsessive 1925. They were trying very hard to express ideas in purely visual pacing across the floor above. Most characteristic of all is the film’s terms.” Hitchcock was also impressed, in a rather different way, by moral ambiguity; ordinary decent people are shown relishing every the notoriously exotic nightlife of ; he was at this time by his Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—5 detail of the sex killings, yet eager to lynch any suspect on the Polish accent hardly fitted the ordinary London girl she was flimsiest of pretexts. playing. Post-dubbing had yet to be devised, so an off-screen Traces of Hitchcock’s German mentors were much in actress, Joan Barry, spoke the dialogue while Ondra mouthed evidence…heavy brooding shadows and oblique camera angles silently to the camera….Far from letting the new medium inhibit abounded, and several sequences recall the Lang of Dr. him, Hitchcock seized the opportunity to experiment with Mabuse….The Lodger was released to ecstatic reviews and subjective sound techniques well ahead of their time….Blackmail enormous box-office success. “It is possible that this film is the also introduced the favorite Hitchcock climax, a spectacular fall finest British production ever made,” wrote the critic of The from a high place, a public monument for preference. In this case, it Bioscope. Overnight, Hitchcock fund himself hailed as the foremost was the roof of the British Museum, through which the wretched genius of British cinema. blackmailer makes his fatal plunge. The film was hugely successful If this seems excessive—The Lodger, though it stands up with both critics and public, and Hitchcock’s status as the foremost well today, hardly looks like a towering masterpiece—it has to be British director seemed secure, which was just as well, since his taken in the context of the British films of the period. They were next few pictures might easily have demolished a lesser reputation abysmal. Kevin Brownlow summed up British postwar silent for good…. movies as “with few exceptions, crudely photographed; the From this low point in his career Hitchcock was rescued direction and editing were on the level of cheap revue, they by Michael Balcon, now head of Gaumont-British at Shepherd’s exploited so-called stars who generally had little more than a Bush. Here he was given a free hand (barring only the occasional glimmer of histrionic talent, and they were exceedingly boring.” tussle with his old enemy C.M. Woolf) to make subjects of his own Against this dismal background, choosing, and launched himself into his Hitchcock’s innately cinematic first great period: the unbroken run of six vision—American-trained, German- masterly thrillers that brought him influenced—shone out with dazzling international fame and mapped out the brilliance. territory of which he was to become In 1926, Hitchcock and undisputed master. Alma Reville (who had converted to As early as 1925, Hitchcock had Catholicism) were married. told a meeting of the London Film Society (Hitchcock, who loved to present that “actors come and go, but the name of himself as a straitlaced sexual the director should stay clearly in the mind innocent, always claimed that they of the audience.” The name of Hitchcock, had both preserved strict premarital at any rate, was certainly intended to do chastity.) Alma continued to work so; he had always assiduously been closely with Hitchcock on his films, courting the press, and in 1930 set up a PR often collaborating on the scripts, and company, Hitchcock Baker Productions, the marriage lasted, apparently whose sole function was to keep himself in without major strain, until his death the public eye. Interviews and articles fifty-three years later. Their only appeared regularly in Film Weekly, World child, Patricia, was born in 1928; she Film news, and so on, building up the became an actress and appeared in carefully fostered image of Hitch, the small roles in several of her father’s pictures. plump, solemn joker with a taste for the macabre. With hindsight, and purely on the basis of The Lodger, Many writers have suggested that a less amiable Hitchcock’s aptitude for thrillers seems obvious. At the time, personality lurked behind the public façade (Donald Spoto, indeed, though, it apparently didn’t, since none of his remaining six silent devoted a whole book to the thesis). Charles Bennett, Hitchcock’s films was a thriller…. main scriptwriter during the 1930s, described him as a bully; and Dissatisfaction with uncongenial material, along with the his predilection for putting his lead actresses through physical promise of bigger budgets and greater freedom, lured Hitchcock to ordeals (both onscreen and sometimes, as with in The a newly founded company, British International Pictures, being set Birds, on set) has given rise to charges of misogyny. His weakness up by John Maxwell at Elstree. His starting salary was £13,000 a for practical jokes was famous…Hitchcock once bet a prop-man at year, which by 1929 had risen to £17,000, making him the highest – Elstree £10 to spend a night in the studio handcuffed to a camera; paid director in Britain. before departing, he poured the man a brandy laced with a strong Hitchcock made a promising start at BIP with The Ring laxative…. (1927)…the story was slight…but it was lifted out of the ordinary “Cinema,” Hitchcock once remarked, “is the orchestration by Hitchcock’s growing technical assurance and eye for significant of shots.” It was also, for him at least, the orchestration of the detail. …Blackmail (1929) has become something of a historical audience…. landmark as the first British talkie. It started out, though, as a silent; Manacles, from The Lodger onwards, are something of a despite Hitchcock’s urgings, John Maxwell was reluctant to invest Hitchcock specialty, a vivid symbol of the humiliating process of in this new and possibly ephemeral gimmick. Only when the silent the law; but in The 39 Steps they serve mainly a source of humor Blackmail was nearly complete did he change his mind; the film and teasing sexual innuendo, as when Carroll, the first of would be “part talking” with sound added to the final reel. Hitchcock’s long line of maltreated cool blondes, tries to remove Hitchcock was already one jump ahead; anticipating Maxwell’s her stockings while keeping Donat’s hand off her thighs. The film decision, he had shot the whole film to allow for sound, making it also marks the first appearance of the McGuffin, Hitchcock’s term relatively cheap and simple to produce two separate versions. The (borrowed from Angus MacPhail) for a thriller’s nominal only serious problem was the star, , whose strong motivating factor—secret plans, miracle ingredient, priceless Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—6 jewelry; in short something that matters vitally to the protagonists things, in fact, which he packed into his movies. “Under the and not at all to the audience. invariably self-possessed and cynical surface,” observed Truffaut, Drama, Hitchcock once suggested, is “life with the dull “is a deeply vulnerable, sensitive and emotional person who feels bits cut out.”… with particular intensity the sensations he communicates to his For sheer entertainment, The Lady Vanishes (1938) is audience.” certainly Hitchcock’s most accomplished film of the decade….Now …North by Northwest (1959). The most accomplished of free from contractual obligations, Hitchcock visited Hollywood and, Hitchcock’s—or, probably, anybody else’s—comedy thrillers, it from the numerous triumphantly concludes the series competing bids for his of cross-country chase movies services, accepted a begun by The 39 Steps. contract from David O. “I plunder my films for Selznick, at that time the ideas, but in my business self- most powerful of the plagiarism is hailed as style.” independent producers…. North by Northwest (made, under Much critical a one-picture deal, for MGM) not dispute has centered around only lifts ides from its picaresque the respective merits of predecessors, it reworks The Hitchcock’s British and Wrong Man for laughs….Ernest American films. Robin Lehman, Hitchcock’s wittiest wood, firmly ensconces in collaborator since John Michael the American camp, Hayes, furnished a crisply dismissed the British films sophisticated script whose ironies as “little more than ‘prentice work,” and a preference for them as and thematic subtlety never for a moment impede our enjoyment. “analogous to preferring A Comedy of Errors to Macbeth.” To Roy …The casting, right down to the smallest role, is faultless: James Armes, this constituted “a profoundly unhistorical judgment,” Mason as the suavest of villains; Eva Marie Saint as the duplicitous Hitchcock’s’ British work being comparable to that of Pabst and blonde; Jesse Royce Landis, unshakably complacent in another Clair, “constantly exciting in its exploration of the cinema’s monster-mother role (“You men aren’t really trying to kill my son, narrative potential and its expression of a consistent set of moral are you?” she inquires brightly of a pair of hit-men in an elevator); values.”…Undoubtedly the American films benefit immeasurably the ever-reliable Leo G. Carroll as a Dulles-like CIA boss. At two from Hollywood’s greater technical sophistication….For some and a quarter hours, North by Northwest is Hitchcock’s longest critics, though (and not only British ones), the whole of Hitchcock’s film, but it never seems like it. … American output represents nothing but a lamentable decline…. Although five times nominated for Best Director, One of Hitchcock’s virtually single-handed achievements Hitchcock never won an Oscar; in 1968 the Academy, perhaps was to raise the cinematic status of the thriller to parity with the slightly embarrassed by the omission, gave him a Thalberg Award other main movie genres…. “for production achievement.” Numerous other awards and honors Though still a British national (not until 1955 would he were bestowed on him, especially in his later years, including the take out US citizenship), Hitchcock had by now decided that his Légion d’Honneur and, in 1979, a Lifetime Achievement Award future, both personal and professional, lay in America. In 1942, from the American Film Institute. In the New Year’s Honours List after renting for a while, he of 1980, he made a knight—Sir and Alma bought a house on Alfred Hitchcock, KBE. Four Bellagio Road in the Bel-Air months later he died quietly at district of Hollywood. (A home. Of kidney failure, at the year later they also bought a age of seventy-nine. vacation house in the hills If during the first half of north of Monterey near Santa his long cinematic career Alfred Cruz.) The Bellagio Road Hitchcock received less than his house remained their home critical due, that situation has for the rest of their been amply remedied; he has lives….Hitchcock’s neatness now been more extensively and passion for order were written about, his work analyzed legendary. “Evil,” he once in greater detail, than any other said, “is disorder,” and his film director. …Hitchcock’s idea of happiness was “a status as an auteur—despite his clear horizon, no clouds, no shadows. Nothing.” As far as he having worked exclusively within the distorting pressures of the possibly could, he eliminated the unpredictable from his life, not commercial Anglo-American cinema—is as secure as that of any only in his working methods but in everything he did. The family director in the world; no one could deny his films a consistent holidays were taken in the same places—New York, London, Paris, stylistic and thematic vision. His technical expertise is immense. and St. Moritz—and even in the same suites of the same hotels, Yet when his admirers number him among “the work’s greatest year after year. To some extent, this was part of the assiduously filmmakers” (Maurice Yacowar) or even among “the greatest living cultivated public persona. But many people, including Hitchcock artists” (Jacques Leduc), doubts begin to surface. “The greatest” is himself, also ascribed it to genuine fear—of surprise, disorder, playing for high stakes—line Hitchcock up alongside Renoir, conflict, social disgrace, the police, the processes of law–of all the Satyajit Ray, Ophuls, or Mizoguchi (to name only moviemakers), Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—7 and at once a whole missing dimension becomes evident. (It must must dust crops. In this particular case, the crops are the hiding be admitted, though, that any one of those four would have made a place of Cary Grant. So I don’t use a crop duster with only a gun. fairly appalling hash of North by Northwest.) The famed control, That’s not enough. It must be used according to its true function. All the premeditated, pre-edited exactitude of his working method, background must function. preclude something to which the creative imperfection of less rigorous directors grants access—something which Robin Wood Certainly one of the most off-beat settings you’ve ever used was in defined (apropos Renoir) as “the sense of superfluous life.” that same film. The Mount Rushmore Memorial. …Truffaut observed that “the director who, through the Yes, but unfortunately, I couldn’t us the Mount Rushmore simplicity an the clarity of his work, is the Memorial to function according to my most accessible to a universal audience is established pattern. The authorities wouldn’t also the director who excels at filming the let me work on the faces at all. I had to work most complex and subtle relationships between them. I wanted Cary Grant to slide between human beings….Hitchcock down Lincoln’s nose and hide in the nostril. belongs….among such artists of anxiety as Then Grant has a sneezing fit, while he’s in Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Poe.” the nostril. That would have made the setting very functional. Hitchcock on Hitchcock. Edited by Sidney Gottlieb. U Cal Press, Berkley, Isn’t there sometimes a very fine line LA, London, 1997. between a setting that is most unusual and What do you feel are the most important one that is credible to the audience? elements to be considered in the The basic principle to be observed is to be as establishment of mood on the screen? life-like as one can—especially in my sort of AH: I think, to sum it up in one way, the material. I deal in fantasy. In other words, I risk you run in trying to get mood is the don’t deal in slice-of-life stories. My cliché, the shadow in the room and what suspense work comes out of creating have you. I spend half my time avoiding nightmares for the audience. And I play with the cliché, in terms of scenes. In North by an audience. I make them gasp and surprise Northwest, the girl sends Cary Grant to a and shock them. When you have a rendezvous where we know an attempt nightmare, it’s awfully vivid if you’re will be made to kill him. Now the cliché dreaming that you’re being led to the electric treatment would be to show him standing on the corner of the street chair. Then you’re as happy as can be when you wake up because in a pool of light. The cobbles are washed by the recent rains. Cut to you’re relieved. It was so vivid. And that’s really the basis of this a face peering out of a window. Cut to a black cat slithering along attempt at realistic photography. the bottom of a wall. Wait for a black limousine to come along. I said no. I would do it in bright sunshine Peter Bogdanovich’s Movie of the Week. with no place to hide, in open prairie Ballantine, NY, 1999. “North By country. And what is the mood? A sinister Northwest” mood. There’s not a sign of where the Obviously North by Northwest is not as menace can come from, but eventually it effective on the tube, since the bravura turns up in the form of a crop duster Virtuosity of Hitchcock’s work needs every airplane. Some one inside the plane shoots inch of its beautifully color-photographed at Cary Grant and he has nowhere to hide. VistaVision space. Arguably, with John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), this was the Do you feel that lighting is perhaps the best VistaVision movie in the best wide- most important single element in the screen process ever invented—and now used creation of cinematic mood? only for certain trick shots. The film looks so Motion picture mood is often thought of as fresh you forget how many imitations and almost exclusively a matter of lighting, wanna-bes it spawned, and you feel yourself dark lighting. It isn’t. Mood is to be in the presence of an original. It’s the apprehension. That’s what you’ve got in most likable culmination of the Hitchcock- the crop duster scene…. Grant collaborations, their fourth, begun superbly with Suspicion (1941), followed You have spoken of working with the brilliantly by Notorious, and romantically by production designer in the selection of To Catch a Thief (1955) …Bernard locales during the scripting phase of a Herrmann’s score is magnificent. production. What is your primary consideration in the choice or setting for a particular sequence? AH quotes A rule that I’ve always followed is: Never use a setting simply as a “Cinema is the orchestration of shots.” background. Use it one hundred percent.…In the crop duster sequence in North by Northwest, the crop duster is used as a “I don’t believe in mystifying an audience. I believe in giving them weapon carrier. That is to say, someone in the plane shoots at Cary all the information and then making them sweat.” Grant; but this is not enough. If w are using a crop duster—then it Hitchcock—NORTH BY NORTHWEST—8

“I’m not interested in content. It disturbs me when people criticize my films because of their content. It’s like looking at a still life and If you want to revisit any scenes from the movie, you might visit saying ‘I wonder whether those apples are sweet or sour.’ Cinema is http://www.hitchcockwiki.com/wiki/1000_Frames_of_North_by_N form.” orthwest.

About showing detail: “If you free the spectator to choose, you’re making theater, not cinema.”

“I’d compare myself to an abstract painter. My favorite painter is Klee.”

“Staircases are very photogenic.”

About the cigarette put out in eggs– “to show my utter dislike of eggs.”

“You know, people say that you can cut a film and make it go fast. I don’t believe that. Speed is preoccupation. In The 39 Steps there was no dead footage, so the audience’s absorption creates the impression of speed.”

“I didn’t walk into this business without proper knowledge of it. I’ve been a technician; I’ve been an editor; I’ve been an art director; I’ve been a writer. I have a feeling for all these people. I fill my responsibility to myself by the manner in which I make films.”

“Some films are slices of life. Mine are slices of cake.”

“We’ve substituted the language of the camera for dialogue.”

“The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.”

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2010 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS XXI: September 28 Kent Mackenzie The Exiles 1963 October 5 Federico Fellini 8½ 1963 October 12 Mike Nichols Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966 October 19 Francis Ford Coppola The Godfather 1972 October 26 Hal Ashby The Last Detail 1973 November 2 Bruce Beresford Tender Mercies 1983 November 9 Wim Wenders Wings of Desire 1987 November 16 Charles Crichton A Fish Called Wanda 1988 November 23 Joel & Ethan Coen The Big Lebowski 1998 November 30 Chan-wook Park Oldboy 2003 December 7 Deepa Mehta Water 2005

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The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News