[kenberg]

The latest movie thread got a new posting, and there is a favorite movie thread, neither of which applies here. I recently saw a re-run of North be Northwest. I know many really think this is a great movie but I realized even more strongly that I don't get it. VanDamn (James Mason) is preparing to flee the country. So he goes to Rapid City, South Dakota where a small plane will pick him up. Winnipeg, is that the plan? Saskatoon, maybe? I suppose all the spies go to Rio so he figures no one will find him in Winnipeg. And then he discovers that Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) is a government agent so he plans to dump her from the plane from 6,000 feet when they are over water. The Red River? It's maybe 30 yards wide. Tough pitch.

Then there is the seduction. Ms. Kendall bribes the train conductor to seat Roger Thorton (Cary Grant) at her table. She explains to him that she did this because there is a long night ahead and she is bored with the book that she is reading. She takes him back to her compartment where much is made of the fact that there is only one bed. Her conclusion from this is that he must sleep on the floor. Even in 1959 this was weird.

I saw this movie when it came out. Everyone said how great it was. I didn't get it then, and fifty plus years later I still don't get it.

[mike777]

I love this movie. Just watched it last week on my new Blue Ray DVD wow, it looked great.

First off this is 1959 movies so of course she does not go to bed with a guy she just met an hour ago. This is not some French movie.

Keep in mind just a few years before married couples slept in seperate beds and always if sitting on a bed had to keep one foot on the floor!

There are alot of lakes to throw her into from a small plane.

Of course this is a Hitchcock movie so whatever the heck they are after does not matter!


"Hitchcock was always able to skate around the censors - this classic film with its sexy close-quarters travel (in a cross-country train compartment) was marked by intriguing dialogue, kissing (circular) and romantic intentions - displayed between identity-confused adman Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and blonde companion Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint); in the film's plot, Thornhill was menaced and mistaken for someone else by master-criminal Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and his homosexual hitman Leonard (Martin Landau), and mocked by his mother Clara (Jessie Royce Landis); in the film's final clever Freudian transition, Thornhill tugged on Eve (hanging on the immense carved stone face of Mount Rushmore) and - CUT - pulled her up into a berth to make love to her in the interior of a Pullman sleeping car (that was heading into a dark phallic tunnel)"

[kenberg]

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First off this is 1959 movies so of course she does not go to bed with a guy she just met an hour ago. This is not some French movie.

A place in the Sun (1951), Now Voyager (Pre-war sometime), Room at the Top (1959) are three that come quickly to mind. We may not have watched the action, but they did it. But my issue is not whether they went to bed, it's the inane conversation that precedes their not going to bed. Basically Hitch and romance were incompatible.

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There are a lot of lakes to throw her into from a small plane.

Not all that easy to find in the Dakotas. Minnesota is next door though, maybe that was the plan. Oh well, I grant that water can be found. If that's important to the plot.

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Of course this is a Hitchcock movie so whatever the heck they are after does not matter!

Of course this is the essence. Contrary to the plot, Mason does not go to Rapid City in order to flee the country, that would be idiotic. He goes to Rapid City so that Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint can crawl around on Mt. Rushmore.

And I have not even gotten to the guy with the plane who cannot shoot a sitting duck and who flies his plane into the side of a truck.

I see from the Wikipedia that Cary Grant complained to Hitch that he couldn't make sense of the plot. I dunno, maybe he found being asked to sleep on the floor incomprehensible. Whatever, I'm with him.

To Catch a Thief is much more my type of Hitchcok movie. At least it has this great last line "Oh, mother will just love it here".

I enjoyed Sweet Home Alabama so I am in no position to cast aspersions on unlikely story lines. I also enjoyed Miss Congeniality. But still, fleeing the country from Rapid City?

Maybe we need a thread for movies we enjoyed but do not plan on defending. Or movies that we found weird how ever many critics liked it. Mulholland Drive, for example. And NNW.

[mike777]

I just watched 3 Hitchcock movies this weekend. Spellbound, Suspicion and Rebecca(won oscar for best movie)..all were great movies...I also watched Holiday(Cary Grant).

All I can say is I love N by NW it grows on me every year even more.....and yes I love the talk(flirtation).

I love..love the chat in the train scenes...if you dont...I agree the movie loses alot..

The plane scene does not make alot of sense yet it is one of the most famous movie scenes of all time.

In the bond movies they always try and kill James in a very very fancy way..so what I love the movies.


Grace Kelly is radiant..yes!

but check out Joan Fontaine.
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yes Mul...drive is a very very wierd movie....
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I just saw "I love you Philip Morris" based on a true story....another strange movie but very funny(adult themes).....decent movie...

[kenberg]

Rebecca is good, as I recall. It's been a while. Suspicion also, although I lack the enthusiasm some have for it.
I think that Notorious is the Hitchcock movie that I rate most highly. While I do not think Hitch could make boy/girl interactions very believable, and I don't think Cary Grant was very good at that no matter who directed, still in Notorious I more or less find the Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman relationship believable. Anyway, I do like Ingrid Bergman very much. And Claude Rains was great in this movie, imo.

Holiday I haven't seen, I'll have to watch for it. Of course I like Kathrine Hepburn.

[mike777]

 kenberg, on 2011-January-02, 20:11, said:

Rebecca is good, as I recall. It's been a while. Suspicion also, although I lack the enthusiasm some have for it.
I think that Notorious is the Hitchcock movie that I rate most highly. While I do not think Hitch could make boy/girl interactions very believable, and I don't think Cary Grant was very good at that no matter who directed, still in Notorious I more or less find the Cary Grant-Ingrid Bergman relationship believable. Anyway, I do like Ingrid Bergman very much. And Claude Rains was great in this movie, imo.

Holiday I haven't seen, I'll have to watch for it. Of course I like Kathrine Hepburn.

I love Kate...I love her and love her movies.....so we agree on that