‘North by Northwest’ still worth watching
Of all the films made in the Black Hills, Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest” really put South Dakota on the cinematic map. For one thing it was a masterpiece that still inspires filmmakers to this day. And it imprinted the four granite faces of Mount Rushmore National Memorial indelibly in the minds of millions of people.
In fact years later, when I did my first press tour to the top of Mount Rushmore – thanks to Greenpeace, that’ll never happen again – I remember half expecting to see James Mason’s modern mansion on the horizon.
“North by Northwest” was released in 1959, and now the 50th anniversary edition has been released on DVD and Blu-Ray. It has all the DVD extras, such as documentaries about on Hitchcock and Cary Grant, as well as a documentary on the making of “North By Northwest,” hosted by Eva Marie Saint.
The new disc has been getting rave reviews, much like the movie itself has earned over the years. The Hitchcock classic seamlessly combines a compelling story, suspense, humor and cinematic action.
If you’ve been living in a cave for the last 50 years, here’s a quick rundown of the plot. Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a New York advertising executive who inadvertently gets caught up in a cloak-and-dagger struggle between the bad guys (James Mason and a very young Martin Landau) and the good guys (Leo G. Caroll). Eva Marie Saint plays Eve Kendall, who seems to be working both sides of the fence.
The chase takes him by train to Chicago and by plane to Rapid City, where the big finale happens on top of Mount Rushmore.
Some think the name of the movie was based in part of the fact that they fly Northwest Orient Airlines to Rapid City, traveling north on Northwest. If that’s true, the movie should have been named “West by Northwest.”
Hitchcock got into a hassle with the National Park Service about filming on the heads. From what I understand, many of those sequences were shot off location. But the scene where Eva Marie shoots Cary was filmed in the Mount Rushmore’s classy old Visitor Center.
That building, by the way, was torn down about a decade ago, which I think was a big mistake.
