1959 - NORTH BY NORTHWEST, on the big screen

Attended a revival of Hitchcock's North By Northwest, part of the Hitchcock at 125 celebration going on in our city.  North By Northwest is kind of a turning point in Hitchcock's career, in many ways  it's the summit of his talent as a storyteller.  His decline starts with his move to Universal studios from Paramount where for various reasons he seemed unable to capture the success of his Paramount films.  After this, he films Psycho and follows it up with the interesting but flawed The Birds.  However it's all downhill from this point.

Anyway here are some behind the scenes photos.

The film was written by Ernest Lehman, his only original film script.  Lehman was one of the prime movers of the film version of The Sound of Music which obviously made a bundle of money for him later in his career.

Hitchcock wasn't allowed to film much of the famous Mt Rushmore climax on location, so it was recreated at MGM studios. 

The crop duster scene was filmed in California not Illinois.  Film buffs have looked for the location for years but the area has been so built up with home construction since the early 1960's no one seems completely sure where it was filmed.

 

Another behind the scenes still from the Mt Rushmore climax.  Bernard Herrmann's score added a great deal to the excitement of this famous chase scene.

Contrary to popular belief Hitchcock's production team did film on location at Mt Rushmore before the Park Service banned him from the location.  No making fun of Mt Rushmore even for a Hitchcock film I guess.

 The last surviving member of the cast, Eva Marie Saint is 99 years old as of this date.

The running time on North by Northwest is 136 minutes but you would never know it the film really well paced.