I recently watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 spy thriller, "North by Northwest" with my young adult daughter. She'd never seen it. I had seen it only on a B&W television with commercial breaks in the late 1960s or early 1970s. She was interested in it because she had a college professor a few years ago who was obsessed with Cary Grant's stylish wardrobe in the film. I remembered the film as being excellent, and I talked it up. Ah, nostalgia. While Cary Grant's character, Roger Thornhill, is impeccably dressed throughout the film, we both found the film to be a disappointment. The only bright spot was learning that Eva Marie Saint, who played the female lead, Eve Kendall, is still alive. At age 96, she's also the oldest living Oscar winner in the acting and directing categories. She won the award for best supporting actress 67 years ago for her performance in "On the Waterfront." Being a millennial and never having heard of Eva Marie Saint, my daughter spent quite a bit of time looking at the small screen in her hand during our home-screening/streaming of "North by Northwest" to deliver the news about Ms. Saint's longevity and her seniority among Oscar winners. Has anyone else remembered fondly an old film seen in youth, and been surprisingly disappointed by a second viewing 40 or 50 years later? With some films, it's simply the poor production quality compared to today's films that makes the old films distractingly unentertaining. That wasn't the case with this one. The production quality was excellent. I can't put my finger on exactly why this one fell flat in current viewing, but my daughter and I both agreed that the speed and manner in which the lead female character fell for the lead male character was implausible. It was probably also that the lead male character remained oddly drawn to her even after he knew that she willingly attempted to send him to his death in an Indiana corn field, an ignominious demise. I still liked the film, but I no longer love it. About the only things I found distracting were Cary Grant's deep tan in the opening scenes (playing a NY ad-man who would have spent nearly 100 percent of his time indoors, most of it in cocktail lounges and expensive restaurants) and that the Indiana scene looked like it was filmed in California. I've driven all over Indiana and seen a lot of farmland there, and I've never seen soil anywhere near that color in Indiana. Both of those distractions were minor, but they took away from the suspension of disbelief.
That's a good question. I can't say that I have been disappointed in some of the old films I have seen upon reviewing. I always liked the Marx brothers and still do--but some of it / them seems a little silly now. As you mentioned, so much has been done with production AND with story lines, that I can understand how some of the classic movies would just not cut it theses days. My little pet peeve is / are the Foley Walkers. They have to get their licks in even disregarding the fact someone is walking on carpet-----having the actor clomping through the scene loudly. Especially sometimes when an actor has rubber soled shoes on----the FWs still clomp him/ her around. It's one of those little things that once you see/ hear it--------. When I have looked at some of my old favorites such as Grapes of Wrath, The Man Who Came to Dinner, My Darling Clementine, etc,etc----I'm not disappointed, but I'm sure that there are some that I would find lacking in some way. I have a pretty good collection of films--some 30s--some 40s-50s and on up until they switched to DVDs. So it goes. ----Joel
I still think the film is a classic. As far as playing fast and loose with geography, that’s a pervasive problem in the industry. When I was young a movie called “The day they gave babies away” was supposed set near my hometown of Oshkosh, Wi. But throughout the film scenes of giant Ponderosa Pines and snow capped mountains said to all the locals, “this isn’t Oshkosh, B’gosh”.
Trains, Planes and Automobiles was supposedly filmed right outside my hometown of Lemoore , California on the freeway leading to the Lemoore Navel Air Station, but I haven't been able to prove it. Remember how Hitchcock made a little cameo in his films? In the movie Lifeboat, a person in the life raft was looking at a newspaper and Hitchcocks picture was in the paper.
I have not seen "North by Northwest" for for many years but one Cary Grant film that does not disappoint is "Arsenic and Old lace". Maybe it is just me but every time I see it I laugh my head off.
At least in this film, I found Cary Grant a bit too normal to be entertaining. James Mason however was entertaining.
At the very beginning of "North by Northwest," we see Hitchcock from his right rear as he's waiting to board a bus. Regarding "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles," I checked a reliable source for movie locations, and it was all filmed in the States of New York (one location in NYC and multiple locations in South Dayton, NY), Illinois (one location in Chicago and multiple locations in the Chicago suburbs), and Missouri (just the St. Louis Airport). The famous scene set at a motel in Wichita, KS, (the "Those aren't pillows!" scene) was filmed at a motel about 45 miles from Chicago. The highway road scenes (burning-car, stopped for speeding, etc.) were all filmed in Illinois. I'm confident that none of the outdoor locations for the film were in California. No airline or automobile rental agency wanted its name or logo associated with the hostility and incompetence portrayed in the film, so sets had to be built for those indoor scenes. Those sets could have been in a warehouse or studio in California near your hometown. I happened to be watching the 1989 film "Field of Dreams," several years ago, and a house that I own appears in the film, right in the center of the screen for the duration of a conversation between James Earl Jones and Kevin Kostner. I didn't own that house yet when the film was made, and I didn't know until I saw the film that much of it was shot in that town, but there it is. For a small town, it was a big deal. Most of the crew stayed in a small city about 15 miles away, but the well known actors - Burt Lancaster (it was his last film), Kevin Kostner, James Earl Jones, Ray Liota, and Amy Madigan and their personal assistants - all stayed in the small town where my house is. I guess I could have looked it up, but sure enough, the "Indiana" farm fields scene in "North by Northwest" was filmed in the California desert, on Route 99, at Wasco, near Bakersfield. It's the same stretch of road where James Dean crashed his Porsche and died four years earlier.
Thanks Nubbins--guess I'll forget that one about my hometown. Cool info you posted. I know exactly where James Dean was killed. The intersection of highways 41 and 46 within sight of Cholame , which consists of a store-restaurant and a memorial to Dean. Dean was hauling ass on 46 heading toward the coast when a guy pulled in front of him making a left turn to head east off 41. When one goes to the coast from my hometown---41 is the way to get there, which I used to do frequently.
Cary Grant made no secret that of all his movies ARSENIC... was his least favorite. He hated his performance in it.
As a kid in the early to mid-1960s I saw LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DOCTOR ZHIVAGO, HOW THE WEST WAS WON, ZORBA THE GREEK in theaters and was really impressed by them. Now 60 years later watching them on dvd or tv I find them terribly boring, pretentious and actually ridiculous in many ways. However, I never get tired of watching Hitchcock movies.
I saw North by Northwest for the first time during lockdown and I thought it was a trip. The plane swooping down on him in the cornfield was crazy! I liked it. I am really into Technicolor for some reason.
Loved but grew up and was like, “the hell?” - Clash of the Titans - Children of the Corn - The Shining - The Program
