North By Northwest (1959) at the Pickwick Theatre

WHAT: North By Northwest (1959) screening on DCP
WHEN: September 17, 2015    7:30 PM
WHERE: Pickwick Theatre, Park Ridge, IL
HOW MUCH: $10/$7 seniors 60+ ($8/$6 advance tickets at box office or online www.pickwicktheatre.com)
WHAT ELSE: Organist Jay Warren performs prelude music at 7:00 PM

Cary Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue ad-man who is mistaken for a mysterious government agent named George Kaplan. A group of spies, headed by Vandamm (James Mason), want Kaplan out of the way. What follows is one prolonged chase with Thornhill pursued by Vandamm’s henchmen (Martin Landau, Adam Williams) as well as by the police, who believe he is the killer of a United Nations delegate. While onboard a train bound for Chicago, Thornhill meets Eve (Eva Marie Saint), an alluring blonde who is not what she appears to be. From the opening strains of the Bernard Herrmann score to the famous cropduster scene to the chase atop Mount Rushmore, North By Northwest is the most exciting adventure Hitchcock ever directed. Made with sophistication and wit, the film became an influence on the later James Bond films of the 1960s.

North By Northwest (1959) is, in the words of its screenwriter, “the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.” It’s the quintessential Hitchcock thriller with many elements seen from his earlier films. In fact, he once referred to the film as “the American 39 Steps.” North By Northwest is one of the greatest films of all time, earning its place in the National Film Registry as well as on the AFI’s greatest movies list.

North By Northwest is the first Alfred Hitchcock film we’ve screened at the Pickwick Theatre Classic Film Series. It’s also the first Hitchcock film I’ve ever presented. That might sound surprising, but when I programmed for the LaSalle Bank Theatre in the early 2000s, I concentrated mostly on lesser-known films and obscure directors. (It’s a tradition that continues at the Park Ridge Public Library Classic Film Series.) But in this day you can’t take it for granted that people have seen the classics. In fact, many younger viewers, many I’ve observed in Park Ridge, have never seen an Alfred Hitchcock film. Now is that rare opportunity to see the “Master of Suspense” on the big-screen.

It would be difficult to say something of this film’s production that hasn’t already been recorded elsewhere. Patrick McGilligan’s Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (2003) is a good place to start for an appreciation of this monumental filmmaker and his work. Instead, I thought I’d add a few words of a more subjective nature about what it means to see Hitchcock on the screen and why I selected this particular title for our Opening Night.

One of the most iconic images in all of cinema…

There are some films that leave an indelible imprint when you see them at a young age– films so gripping they shape how you view the medium itself. As a kid I was introduced to Hitchcock the personality through reruns of the 1950s murder-mystery series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The first time I saw a Hitchcock film in a theatre was a 1984 re-release of Rear Window. It was Thanksgiving, and I was with my dad and my older brother. I believe it was the Mercury Theatre on North and Harlem where my dad took us, but I’m less vague about the impact it had on me. Seeing it in a theatre made the difference in how I would remember it. I couldn’t forget the suspense I felt seeing beautiful Grace Kelly surreptitiously enter Raymond Burr’s apartment while a wheelchair-bound Jimmy Stewart sat helpless across the courtyard. Though Hitchcock only appeared onscreen momentarily in Rear Window, I sensed his hand at work in the suspense that played out in front of me.

Since that time, I’ve seen more of Hitchcock in film school and in revival theatres, experiencing films like Vertigo, Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers On a Train, Psycho, and others. I did not watch them on a television set or, even worse, on Youtube. Instead of allowing the film to control you as it does in a theatre, a new generation controls the film and how it is presented. Entertainment now comes to us directly, downloaded or streamed, and people watch their movies on their iPhones and iPads or whatever toy is in fashion. But the movie experience itself is about making that effort to come out to the show; the reward of seeing something like North By Northwest is always worth that effort.

James Mason, Eva Marie Saint, and Cary Grant on location. North By Northwest is the second time in three years we’ve opened a season with James Mason.

In the history of cinema classes there are (or should be) references to North By Northwest‘s cropduster sequence– the point in the story in which Roger Thornhill gets off a bus in the middle of nowhere to meet a man who could reveal the answers he seeks. Instead, he is ambushed by a biplane. It’s one of the most brilliantly-edited moments in all of cinema, and perhaps the one sequence– aside from the shower killing in Psycho— that Hitchcock is best-known for. The geographical perspective and the spatial relationship between Thornhill and his environment simply can’t be duplicated anywhere else except on a widescreen. How amazing will it be then to see that plane diving on one of the largest screens in the suburbs.

To open our third season of classic movies at the Pickwick Theatre, I chose a Hitchcock film that has universal appeal. Kids will enjoy the action while adults will appreciate the sly innuendo and comic repartee in Ernest Lehman’s original screenplay. It’s not as dark as the film Hitchcock made previously (Vertigo) or the one that would follow (Psycho). In fact, there is a great deal of humor in North By Northwest which is attributable to the persona of Cary Grant.

Great films shape our lives and take us in directions we might not otherwise have travelled. The most memorable vacation I recall was when my aunt and uncle took me to South Dakota to see the Mount Rushmore National Memorial. Besides the fact that I would be seeing a revered monument in one of the most beautiful locales of the United States, I would also be at an Alfred Hitchcock movie location. Granted, only three scenes in the film were shot in Keystone, South Dakota, but for me, to be there was more exciting than Disney World. I wanted to soak up the atmosphere and see the visitor’s center and the cafeteria where Thornhill was “shot” by Eve. And though I knew, even then, that the filming of the climactic chase on Mount Rushmore was staged on a movie set and not atop the Presidents’ heads, it was still a great thrill to simply be there in the vicinity. Ultimately, North By Northwest made me appreciate the monument and its history even more. For those who have seen Mount Rushmore, North By Northwest is certainly a must-see.

For more about the drama behind the filming of Hitchcock’s North By Northwest at Mount Rushmore, Click Here!

~M.C.H.