Comments on: North By Northwest

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Sun, 25 Jan 2004 00:33:17 +0000

IIRC, in the movie Grant’s character does mention what the O. stands for. Nothing. He did it as a sort of joke so that his initials would be ROT. I didn’t know that was meant to be taken literally, will need to go back and see the movie again. Vera Miles was originally Hitch’s choice to replace Grace Kelly. They had a falling out, though, because Miles got pregnant. (Something like that.) Hitch said he would have cast Kelly in every film if she hadn’t quit acting, apparently he never found a true replacement. Htich had this kind of relationship with most of his leading actresses, Janet Leigh is an example that comes to mind. Given how he viewed women, it is unsurprising.

By: scott h.

scott h. — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 21:23:04 +0000

IIRC, in the movie Grant’s character does mention what the O. stands for. Nothing. He did it as a sort of joke so that his initials would be ROT. Vera Miles was originally Hitch’s choice to replace Grace Kelly. They had a falling out, though, because Miles got pregnant. (Something like that.) Hitch said he would have cast Kelly in every film if she hadn’t quit acting, apparently he never found a true replacement.

By: Keith

Keith — Fri, 23 Jan 2004 02:21:51 +0000

That optimism covering a sinister truth is a trademark of Hitchcocks, along with the modernist scenery to the film. I’m a big fan of Hitchcock. The wife and I just picked up the DVD rstoration of Rear Window. Where are the students of hitchcock though? Why haven’t we seen these themes get more coverage of late? It’s not like they wouldn’t strike a nerve with the audience…

By: Andrew Boucher

Andrew Boucher — Wed, 21 Jan 2004 18:40:45 +0000

Of course one can’t judge a film just by its sets. The theme of North by Northwest is pretty negative. Set in the Cold War, the American spy agency lets innocent Grant (unknowingly) serve as bait and risk his life, so that some enemy agents can be caught. So I don’t think you can say that it “has a taste of the optimistic side of the 1960s about it,” without mentioning the flip side that it also has a test of the pessimistic side as well.

By: Maynard Handley

Maynard Handley — Wed, 21 Jan 2004 16:26:44 +0000

Remember when you blog that the world is bigger than the US and Europe. The most striking thing to me about my trip to Asia last year was the palpable sense of optimism everywhere, the feeling that the future was theirs and promised everything.

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:10:13 +0000

The texture of the film is wonderful: the future we were promised and never had. I suppose this can be worked in to part of the atmosphere of the film and Hitchcock’s style as well; as beneath the optimism there always lurks something much more sinister and unpleasant. There are all sorts of holes and gaps in the film; where things that should be there aren’t and things that are play a very different role than the one they are supposed to. The imaginary man whose identity Thornill is foisted with is an example of the former (as is the O. in Thornhill’s name which we are never told what it stands for) while the crop-duster plane is an example of the latter. Like the country house Grant is interrogated in early on in the film; beneath a calm and initially surface there is always something crueller and darker sustaining the image.

By: Dedman

Dedman — Wed, 21 Jan 2004 11:38:13 +0000

I don’t recall exactly, but if memory serves, Saint’s role was originally to go to Grace Kelly, but her new found life in Monaco prevented her from becoming part of that film. It’s also interesting to see Martin Landau so young – I’m so used to thinking of him as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.