Episode 278: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a hinky Hitchcock tale of mistaken identity, assumed identity, shifting truths, and a man with a huge butt chin using a SpongeBob-comically-small razor. Cary Grant stars as an ad man who gets caught up in a Cold War game of cat-and-mouse (he’s the mouse) opposite double agent Eva Marie Saint, Broadly European Bad Guy James Mason, and the FBI/CIA/NSA/WTFE as the other players stringing him along (they’re the cats).

A certain amount of NORTH BY NORTHWEST is best appreciated in context of Hitchcock’s previous films. After all, screenwriter Ernest Lehman said he wanted to write “the Hitchcock film to end all Hitchcock films”! To that end, it’s kind of a greatest hits collection, a suspenseful road movie keeping the tension high all the way from NYC to Mount Rushmore. What’s amazing is that it actually works totally on its own, too. Our discussion touches on the delightful sense of playfulness the movie has, Cary Grant as the perfect avatar of lovable pissantism, the cultural and political implications Hitchcock did not want us thinking about it, and how the auteur’s finely tuned filmmaking sensibilities serve his eighth-to-last film.

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Theme: "Raindrops" by Huma-Huma/"No Smoking" PSA by John Waters. Closing audio: “Main Theme” by Bernard Hermann from the NORTH BY NORTHWEST soundtrack.

Timestamps

0:00 - Episode 278: NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

3:01 - The episode actually starts

6:44 - The Patented Aaron Grossman Summary

9:47 - How NORTH BY NORTHWEST plays to Hitchcock’s well-rounded filmmaking style

23:38 - Hitchcock looking back

45:43 - Critique of masculinity, nations, Cold War politicking

52:47 - Balancing critique and lighthearted fun

1:01:33 - The Junk Drawer

1:13:04 - To All the Loves We’ve Tried Before: 1959

1:14:21 - Cody’s Noteys: Trylove Movie Draft