Entertainment :: Movies
North By Northwest - 50th Anniversary Edition by Steve Weinstein
EDGE Editor-In-ChiefThursday Nov 5, 2009 Watching North By Northwest for what must be that 10th time, I was struck as much by how totally absurd Ernest Lehman’s screenplay is. Even he admits, in his commentary, that some business is thrown in for no particular reason.
That the movie works--and does it ever--is thanks to the entire production ensemble. This 50th anniversary edition describes in loving detail on one of the extras all of the elements that went into the making of this memorable romantic-spy-mistaken identity-travelogue-comedy.
At the head of the list, of course, is Alfred Hitchcock, who gets a very long documentary devoted to his art. The talking heads are mostly a gaggle of current directors, some geniuses themselves (Martin Scorsese, William Friedkin), others ... well, not so much.
There are two actors--Martin Landau and Eva Maria Saint--as well as Lehman himself. But the documentary would have benefited from a few more talking heads, especially academics. No other director has been as closely studied as Hitch. A Frenchman or two might have been nice, since the French worship him as the world’s greatest auteur.
Saint, who looks fabulous in her naturally aged face (remember those?) narrates and hosts a documentary about the film. Much of the information is repeated in other documentaries and the commentary, but with this movie, too much is hardly enough.
There’s also a music-only track, which really drives home how essential Bernard Hermann’s music was to the mise-en-scene. There’s also a TCM documentary on Cary Grant that includes extended interviews and commentary from two of his surviving wives. For reasons only they can explain, Diahann Cannon and the daughter they had together do not appear.
The documentary does discuss Cary Grant’s longest-running adult relationship, with the equally ridiculously good-looking Randolph Scott, although it comes down firmly on the side of their heterosexuality. Gay-wise, Lehman provides a nice revelation as an aside: that Landau’s character, the devoted and sinister assistant to master spy James Mason, is in love with his boss. Hitch was totally at home with human sexuality in all its forms: Strangers on a Train, Rope, etc.
If you’re a lover of movies, this should be high on your must-have list, since North by Northwest is Hitch at his finest, and Hitch is filmmaking at its finest.
Screenwriter commentary
Music-only track
The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style
North by Northwest: One for the Ages
Cary Grant: A Class Apart
Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
Photo gallery
Trailers
EDGE Editor-in-Chief Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early ’80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
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