North By Northwest: Hitchcock Going Full Hitchcock

It is a dizzying first watch, purposefully fitting in overwhelming dialogue and pitting the audience in the same state of confusion that Cary Grant finds himself in. But once it gets going, it’s pure popcorn: Hollywood at its golden age. In no way is anything that happens here rooted in reality, but no one at the time (and mostly today too) watches a movie to have it depict our mundane day to day. It’s a formula of spectacle that you can easily tell influences Hollywood decades afterwards. 

Cary Grant may be the “everyman” insurance executive here, but really nothing can take away his presence. I think he is the same age as the actor who plays his mother in the movie, but nothing can truncate the suave and command Grant has on screen. I mean who doesn’t want to be like him?

Final point, “North By Northwest” is less of a movie, and more of a vehicle to express exciting moments of tension. Hitchcock has already established himself with presenting scenarios that could get us to jump out of our seat, but this seems like a collection of scenes he had in his mind that he somehow wanted to string through into a movie. He openly admitted that he wanted a chase on Mount Rushmore (I guess a combo of excitement and mise-en-scene commentary behind the potential cautions towards the US being at the center of a more connected globe? idk). 

But yes, it seems like Hitchcock one day went to himself “What if we put an egregiously drunk man in a car and see if he survives?” Then another day, “What if we put a man in a massive field with a plane that is shooting at him? That would be fun on screen!” Otherwise why the hell would either of these scenarios happen in this movie? Anyway, Hitchcock was right, because both examples are absolutely riveting on screen. Even if we get to perceive a bit of the magician’s secrets, I think it is even cooler that an audience can still be mesmerized by them. Credit to Lehman and Hitchcock.