Cary Grant and Hitchcock go in a Northwesterly Direction

The Simpsons has taken such a large place in pop culture that it literally pushed out some of the other stuff. I mean, they frequently parody movies, TV shows, books and generally everything about the media. The problem is, a lot of Simpsons viewers are in the 12-25 demographic (I’m making it up, it’s something of that equivalent nonetheless.), who are either too young, too lazy or too influenced by MTV and other such crap to know what is being parodied. They laugh because it’s funny.

So, why am I writing this in a review of North By Northwest? Well, one episode featured Marge’s fear of flying. In a flashback scene, young Marge and her mother are standing by a cornfield when they are attacked by a crop duster. Yes, just like in North By Northwest. Older viewers laugh, but younger viewers only guffaw for no reasons. They don’t get the jokes because their whole experience with Hitchcock is seeing the episode of That 70’s Show that paid homage to his movies, or maybe watching ten seconds of Dial M For Murder before flipping the channel.

As much as I adore The Simpsons, I can’t help but be worried at their slaying of pop culture. Whenever I see a classic with a friend (let me tell you that doesn’t happen too often), there’s a good chance that during a particular scene, he/she (wait, who am I kidding, he) will guffaw and say “Ha! Just like in The Simpsons.” In these moments, I bite my lip and squeeze the couch really hard. I don’t say anything because I know I would be tried for murder and go Charles Manson on the world.

Why am I telling you this, you ask again. Well, you see, North By Northwest is one of those movies, Simpsons or no Simpsons, that will always remain in pop culture, even after Leif Garret and the Whassup Guys are reduced to making lame sitcom appearances. (Wait, Garett already does that.)

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is a New York publicist. Always well dressed, clean-shaven and courteous, Roger is meeting some friends in a restaurant one day. Someone calls out for George Kaplan at the same time as Roger gets up to answer the phone, and he mistaken for Kaplan. He is taken by two men into a cab and brought out into the country. There, a man interrogates him, gets him drunk and attempts to kill him. He escapes with a stolen car is eventually arrested and charged with drunk driving and possession of a stolen vehicle. He returns to the house the next day to find that he has been framed. Nothing he remembers is still there, the people who met don’t exist, except the man who supposedly tried to kill him. Thornhill learns this man works for the UN. Heading to UN headquarters, he meets the man, who promptly gets stabbed in the back. Again, Thornhill is framed. Not for the last time, either.

Trying to put North By Northwest in a specific genre would be like trying to define love. Eventually, you’ll find something, but after a while it just won’t seem right. NBN is a spy story, but unlike James Bond, Roger doesn’t have a clue what to do and doesn’t have anything to help him out. North By Northwest is a comedy, but unlike Hitchcock’s previous comedy efforts, the humor is more or less satirical. North by Northwest is a thriller, but the other elements prevent it from achieving the suspenseful factor of Psycho or Rear Window. One thing is sure, however. North by Northwest is one hell of a good movie.

Cary Grant is an actor that I never really paid close attention to, mostly because his movies didn’t interest me. (Happy Gilmore and The Long Kiss Goodnight did, however.) Once again, Hitchcock shows a doigté at turning a people’s actor into a terrific, multi-layered actor. (Imagine Robin Williams or Tom Hanks playing the role of Lester Burnham in American Beauty. It wouldn’t work with Sam Mendes, but it would with Hitchcock.) Grant’s performance is funny, nerve-jangling and believeable at once.

One thing that always, always shows up with Hitchcock is in the women. All of them are gorgeous, blonde and mysterious. Be it Grace Kelly, Tippi Hedren, Janet Leigh, or Kim Novak, they always show up. They barely say anything until their role is firmly in place, but they always have a dark or nasty side. The belle du jour in North By Northwest is played by Eva Marie Saint. Explaining her role would fill the whole page, so I’ll just say she’s Thornhill’s… friend. She, like the other Hitchcock women, gives an excellent, mysterious performance.

I’ve always found that the scripts from Hitchcock’s films have a certain modern flair. The dialogue is always crisper and fresher than the other movies of their era. Here, the script even surpasses those of Vertigo and Psycho. The romantic dialogue seems about up to par with a soap opera when taken out of context, but when delivered by the magnetic leads, they seem like the cleverest stuff ever written. Again, this is Hitchcock at work.

Most good movies have at least one scene that you remember. North By Northwest has more than a few. Hitchcock (who, you may have noticed, I now idolize to the bottom of my five foot ten frame) has THE touch. He could have a made a great scene out of Keanu Reeves watching TV (Note to Hollywood producers, DO NOT ATTEMPT. You have been warned).

You’re probably sick as hell of reading my ravings on this larger-than-life movie. The fact is, if you’ve recently come out of the movie idiot closet (like I have), North By Northwest is a perfect introduction to Hitchcock. It doesn’t have all the confusing plot (being sarcastic here, I know that sarcasm in writing doesn’t usually fare too well, especially by my limited standards of writing) of Vertigo, plus, teenagers might even… like it. At least, until they watch the Simpsons again.