A second watch of this has made it all come together. This is a hell of a spy movie, complete with multiple twists, insane set pieces, bonkers scenarios, and a story that held my attention for a solid 2:15 runtime. Cary Grant is great, but. Eva Marie Saint (still alive at 100!) is magnificent. I was caught off guard by how horny the movie is. There is a lot of sex talk for what I have always considered (maybe in error) a pretty prudish period in movie making, some really forward conversations, and a very on-the-nose final shot to bring it home. Nothing else I say can do the movie much justice. This has legs well beyond me, but here are a few things I picked up on this time:
- The opening credits with the angled lines dissolving into a reflective glass surface of a building was magnificent.
- Watching Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill driving while hammered was funny. He steels himself against his intoxication to overcome the problem. But it’s that he can simply overcome it by being determined.
- Why is it that cabbies in these movies just understand that regular Joes may get into a car and need to escape someone following them? “I’m being followed. Can you do anything about it?” “Yes, I can.” Cabbies just know how to get away?
- The shot of Roger running out of the United Nations and into a car, from far overhead looking straight down the side of the UN Building was spectacular.
- Horny conversation: “You’re a big girl, in all the right places.”
- The auction scene, along with the jail scene after the drunk driving, are too long, and they are long to the point that it feels like Cary Grant needed to do a few bits for some reason.
- The shooting in the Mount Rushmore cafeteria was bonkers, but obviously on purpose in context.
- Did Cary Grant just stand up for women? Or was that a weirdly paternalistic take?
- The Mount Rushmore scene is incredible. The controversy surrounding it is cool. The editing and directing of this sequence is incredible. I watched thinking there was no way they shot this on that monument. But it looked so good! The angles were unreal. Alas, it was faked, but quite well.
- The movie ends with a discussion of fucking, then a train chugs into a tunnel, so yeah.
I found Cary Grant to be a bit strange in this. I’ll have to watch for more performances by him to see if it’s a thing he does, or if he was directed to do it. He just has a bit of an overly dramatic flair. When he stops to look back at someone following him, he makes this sort of signature move where he holds his arm up to indicate, “I’m looking int the distance.” I found it odd, and coupled with his bits during several scenes, this felt like something he was making sure happened.
I also appreciated Martin Landau in this. Boy did he have a look.In fact, his look is what made me start thinking about this movie as a type of Hitchcock Bond movie. Landau looked like a Bond villain in this, and the movie had a bit of that with Vandamm being a solid baddie and a very solid story that weaves its way through a lot if intrigue.
I’m not an expert on Hitchcock, but I am becoming really fond of his stuff. There is a tin of catalog to get through with him, and I fear that most of it will feel reductive after seeing the big masterpieces of his. However, he has yet to miss for me, so it’s probably worth the effort.