Saturday Night at the Movies with Alfred Hitchcock: North by Northwest & Vertigo

 

Last night, I took in a double feature of Alfred Hitchcock films at the Brattle Theatre - North by Northwest starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau and Vertigo starring Jimmy Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes. 

While I have seen Cary Grant being chased down and shot at by a dust cropper and Jimmy Stewart dangling on the awning of a building, I had never viewed these movies in their entirety. Given their legacy, these are movies best viewed on a big screen with an audience. With that said, I suspect that these movies might very well have been a double feature on TVOntario's Saturday Night at the Movies with Elwy Yost sometime between the 1970s and 1990s with Yost introducing them in his inimitable enthusiasm. 

Released one year apart in the late 1950's, there are some significant differences between the two films. In North by Northwest, we are taken from New York to Mount Rushmore while Vertigo stays in and around the San Francisco Bay. North by Northwest is very fast paced while Vertigo is very deliberate with Novak not even uttering a word until halfway through the film. Both movies had their share of laughter although the laughter in Vertigo was far more uncomfortable. Both movies do end with literal cliff hangers with one ending happily and the other ending with abrupt awfulness. I'll leave it to you to guess which film had which ending. 

I will tell you that Jimmy Stewart went to some very dark places in Vertigo. He certainly had flashes of that darkness in It's a Wonderful Life. Undoubtedly, Hitchcock saw those dark features and made them a more central feature of Stewart's acting. 

North by Northwest featured some familiar character actors. Edward Platt briefly appeared as Grant's attorney who would gain later fame as the Chief on the 1960's TV series Get Smart starring Don Adams and Barbara Feldon. Leo G. Carroll plays a CIA official who would take on a similar role in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. starring Robert Vaughn and David McCallum. Meanwhile, Jesse Royce Landis portrays Grant's mother and would play a similar role in the 1971 Columbo episode "Lady in Waiting" featuring Susan Clark as the killer. It would turn out to be her last onscreen credit as she passed away early the following year.

Remarkably, the leading ladies from both films are still us. Kim Novak is 91 while Eva Marie Saint celebrated her 100th birthday last month. 

Perhaps I am getting more impatient in my middle age, but I felt there were times when both films dragged on particularly Vertigo. Fortunately, this did not render me dizzy. Mind you, I was at the Brattle for more than five hours. Then again, I don't have this feeling when I'm at the Brattle for 7 to 8 hours on New Year's Day for the Marx Brothers Movie Marathon. 

But on balance I liked both films and so did the near capacity audiences. Sometimes there's nothing better than a Saturday night at the movies.