Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest (2000) - transcript

Transcript for the documentary "Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest", based on the subtitle track from a DVD.

The following people appear in the transcript:

• Eva Marie Saint - host
• Ernest Lehman
• Patricia Hitchcock
• Robert Burks
• Martin Landau

Transcript

Eva Marie Saint

Alfred Hitchcock is regarded as one of the greatest film directors of all time. His genius was tapping into the most basic of human emotions: fear. However, the way he created fear in his films was far more cunning than merely depicting scenes of extreme violence. Hitchcock put us in touch with how we could become the unwitting victims of secrets, betrayal and even government plots in the midst of our everyday lives. He employed this premise in many of his best pictures.

[ film clip montage ]

Eva Marie Saint

However, "North by Northwest" stands out as the ultimate Hitchcock thriller. I'm Eva Marie Saint and this is the story of how this film was made and the master who brought it to the screen.

[ opening credits over film clip montage ]

Eva Marie Saint

From the late 1920s Alfred Hitchcock plied his trade in the motion picture business and as told by his daughter, Pat Hitchcock it was a family business.

Patricia Hitchcock

My mother and father first met she had been in the motion picture business since she was 16 and she was working as an editor, a cutter. But in the days when you put one reel here it went through a little sort of viewer, and another reel over there and it ruined her eyes I might say. And this young man came in, and what he was there for was drawing the pictures for the subtitles. On the sunsets he'd draw the sun setting, and that's where they met. He never spoke to her because she had a much better job than he did. Then, you didn't do that.

And then eventually, she became an editor on a picture he was going to be assistant director on so then that was all right. He could talk to her. Actually, it was very soon after he met her that he became a director. Then she worked with him on all of his pictures.

Eva Marie Saint

After many successes in the 1940s and early '50s Hitchcock was contracted by MGM to create a film adaptation of the celebrated novel "The Wreck of the Mary Deare". So Hitch had the studio hire Ernest Lehman fresh from "The Sweet Smell of Success" to write the screenplay. However, "The Mary Deare" was never to set sail for Hitchcock and Lehman.

Ernest Lehman

I walked in one day and said: "I give up. You've got to get yourself a new writer. I don't know how to do this picture." He said, "Don't be silly. We get along so well together. We'll just do something else." I said, "Well, what do we tell MGM?" He said, "We won't tell them."

One day Hitch said to me: "I always wanted to do a chase across the faces of Mt. Rushmore." I said, "I like that", and I made some little notes on that.

And then one day Hitch said: "I always wanted to do a scene where somebody is addressing the United Nations and says: 'I refuse to continue until the delegate from Peru wakes up.'" So an usher goes over and taps the delegate from Peru and he falls over. He's dead. And I sat in my office trying to construct a story which began at the United Nations and that was the genesis. I said, "I want to make the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures. Something that has wit sophistication glamour action and lots of changes of locale." That's when I started writing.

I created the first 65 pages of the screenplay sent them off to Hitch and I have a beautiful four-page handwritten letter from Hitchcock which is in my scrapbook telling me how much he liked the first 65 pages. That's priceless.

So he went to the powers that be at MGM and spun about 20 percent of a movie, because that's about all we had. He looked at his watch and said: "Well, gentlemen, I have a meeting now, and I'll see you at the preview." They were thrilled. They felt they were gonna get two Hitchcock pictures instead of one. It was typical of him.

Eva Marie Saint

With a schedule that required shooting in three locations including Mt. Rushmore it was becoming clear to MGM "North by Northwest" was going to be a very large, expensive production. The original cost estimates came in at a little over three million dollars which could be the cost of a star's trailer today. Hitchcock brought in a tried and true creative team including art director, Bob Boyle.

Robert Burks

The reason we had story boards, and why it was all preplanned is that not only it was easier for him but he had already been able to communicate with all the other disciplines involved. Hitchcock had the big office at the end. Next to him was Lehman, the writer. I had the office next to Ernie. Bob Burks, the cameraman, had an office next to me. George Tomasini, the editor everybody was on.

Patricia Hitchcock

He'd have a finished script. He would then take a pad with three rectangles on it. He would then draw every single shot in the picture. He'd then go over it with the cameraman. So, by the time he got on the set he knew exactly what that movie would look like on the screen.

Robert Burks

To him, the exciting part was thinking was sitting behind his desk and thinking about a sequence.

Eva Marie Saint

From the beginning, Hitchcock and Lehman had Jimmy Stewart in mind for the role of Roger Thornhill. But at some point, it was suggested the project might be a better vehicle for Cary Grant. However, the casting of his leading lady was a challenge.

[ footage of Cyd Charisse ]

Eva Marie Saint

MGM suggested their contract player Cyd Charisse to play Eve Kendall but Hitchcock didn't think she was right for the part and suggested me. I had just starred in "Raintree County" for MGM who thought I was wrong for the role of the sexy double agent. Regardless, Hitchcock insisted, and I was hired.

Patricia Hitchcock

He could see something in people that other people couldn't see. He could see the classiness. He could see her as a person, instead of the parts she'd been playing.

Ernest Lehman

He secretly admired beautiful women, quite obviously particularly if they looked like Grace Kelly or Eva Marie Saint. His eyes always gave him away. His eyes always followed beautiful women.

Patricia Hitchcock

Blonds are more mysterious. "What is she like? Is she cool? Is she sexy?" That's what you're not sure of. It was all tied in with the mystery.

Eva Marie Saint

Hitchcock asked James Mason for the role of Vandamm.

Ernest Lehman

And then, finally, Marty Landau was on the roster.

Martin Landau

Hitchcock saw me in a play "Middle of the Night", which I'd done on Broadway with Edward G. Robinson. Then I got a call from him, for a picture called "North by Northwest".

Patricia Hitchcock

He did use the same people, the same character actors. Look at Leo G. Carroll. He was in practically every Hitchcock picture.

Eva Marie Saint

In the role of Mrs. Thornhill, Hitchcock asked Jessie Royce Landis although only a year older than Cary Grant. Other notable casting included the heavies: Adam Williams, Robert Ellenstein and veteran character actress, Nora Marlowe.

When I got the role, I had just given birth to my daughter Laurette Hayden. So, after I lost a few pounds, Hitch began the process of transforming me into Eve Kendall. He personally oversaw all of the details of Bill Tuttle's glamorous makeup designs and the sophisticated hairstyles of Sydney Guilaroff. But he wasn't so crazy about MGM's costumes for me. The studio designed a wardrobe for my character but Hitchcock didn't like it and threw out almost everything. Then he took me to Bergdorf Goodman in New York and we selected the rest of my wardrobe right off the models. I often joke that he was my one and only sugar daddy!

Ernest Lehman

I had absolutely nothing for the final act of the picture. I found myself in the second week of not having written a single page. I said, "Hitch, we're in trouble". He said, "I'll be right down". I didn't know why we were in Mt. Rushmore, and I told him my dilemma. I suddenly heard myself saying: "She takes a gun out of her purse and shoots him." Where did that come from? The right brain. The right brain keeps working all the time.

Eva Marie Saint

And so after a thorough preproduction period we headed to New York for the start of principal photography. Ironically, the first day of shooting required Alfred Hitchcock to commit an actual crime. The script required Roger to walk in the front entrance of the United Nations.

Ernest Lehman

He wasn't allowed to shoot in the United Nations and Cary Grant is seen entering the building so Hitch secretly filmed it from across the street.

Eva Marie Saint

Hitchcock took Cary Grant down to the U.N. with a VistaVision camera concealed in a truck...

Robert Burks

If I remember, it was a carpet-cleaning truck.

Eva Marie Saint

...and stole this master shot of the famous building right under the noses of U.N. security. Hitchcock must've taken great pleasure in getting away with it. The following day, Hitch and the crew shot the opening scene on Madison Avenue.

Ernest Lehman

I'd be standing on Madison Avenue watching Hitch shoot the opening scene of the picture and a movie critic named Hollis Alpert came along. He said, "Ernie, what are you doing here watching Alfred Hitchcock shoot his picture?" I said, "He isn't shooting his picture. He's shooting my picture."

Eva Marie Saint

Of course, Hitchcock made his requisite appearance in every film.

Patricia Hitchcock

Which started way, way back in England when they were making silent movies, when they didn't have crowds. And then he just kept doing it, and then it kept being more amusing. It got to be so that people would see him and say, "There he is!" Well, that ruins any mood that you're trying to get in the movie. So, he always had to do it, and you'll notice in all the later movies he always had to do it very early on.

Robert Burks

That was his signature piece. He goes over to a bus. I think he liked the idea of having the bus slam the door on him.

In those days, there wasn't a good film commission in New York and the police would come on and you had to pay each situation again and again and again. And in some interview he referred to the New York police as "New York's worst". When we arrived at the Plaza Hotel we had no police protection, so Hitchcock was very upset about this.

Eva Marie Saint

Coincidentally, Cary kept an apartment at the Plaza where he escaped from the crowded lobby between takes. So my co-star emerged at the last moment before a take. As legend has it, when they shot this Cary entered the lobby without a word from the director. After shouting, "Cut", Hitchcock was asked why he hadn't directed Cary for the scene. Hitch simply remarked, "Oh, he's been walking across this lobby for years. I don't need to tell him how."

Ernest Lehman

Hitch took me to dinner and he suddenly got very serious. He said, "Ernie, you know, we're not making a movie. We're constructing an organ the kind of organ that you see in a theater. And we press this chord and now the audience laughs. And we press that chord, and they gasp. And we press these notes, and they chuckle." He said, "Someday we won't have to make the movie. We'll just attach them to electrodes and play the various emotions for them to experience in the theater."

Eva Marie Saint

Next, the exterior of the Glen Cove Long Island Estate was shot.

Robert Burks

This house had fantastic grounds with a long driveway up from the main road to the house. Fitted us perfectly.

Eva Marie Saint

Besides being one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, Cary Grant was a successful businessman in his own right.

Patricia Hitchcock

He charged 15 cents for an autograph. I was impressed once, because I thought: "Isn't that nice? He's giving it to charity." I don't think he was giving it to charity, he was giving it to him!

Robert Burks

He was very clever at that. He would always have someplace to go just before the check arrived.

Eva Marie Saint

Soon after, the company shot the scenes at Grand Central Station. One thing I'll never forget: Hitchcock always wore a suit and tie on the set. He was the very picture of button-down respectability which was another way he inspired confidence in those working around him.

After concluding the New York location we headed out by train in a northwesterly direction to Chicago where we began shooting my first scene for the film: the train exterior at LaSalle Station. So, here I was starring as a sexy spy lady opposite Cary Grant in a romantic thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Believe me, it wasn't all bad!

I loved playing Eve because it was so different from "On the Waterfront" or anything else I'd ever done before. Hitch said, "You don't have to cry in this one, Eva Marie. No more sink parts for you." Meaning the dowdy wife at the kitchen sink. Cary thought I should play nothing but glamorous leading ladies for the rest of my career. But, I wanted to do it all, the real and the unreal and I pretty much have.

As a director, Hitch was mostly concerned with the technical aspects of getting his vision on-screen. "Your hand goes here. You're looking up there." He wasn't like Kazan who would whisper wonderful intimate direction in your ear. Hitch gave me three basic pieces of direction: First, lower your voice. Second, don't use your hands, and third always look directly into Cary's eyes.

One of his greatest gifts was that he made you feel you were the only perfect person for the role and this gave you incredible confidence in playing the part. And then, he'd leave you to your own devices. It was really a wonderful set to work on.

Ernest Lehman

Hitch shut down the picture for a whole day because he couldn't figure out something I had written for which there was no explanation. There's a raking shot in the LaSalle Street Station of phone booths. In one of them is Leonard and the camera slowly dollies over to another phone booth and there's Eve on the other phone and he's obviously giving her instructions. It suddenly dawned on him "how did he know the telephone number?" "Where's Ernie?" "In Europe." And he shut down until somehow he came up with an answer that satisfied him and he continued shooting.

Eva Marie Saint

Then he filmed the scene where Cary stalks me outside the Ambassador Hotel.

Ernest Lehman

Hitch was rather apprehensive. He was very reclusive. He was afraid of the police.

Robert Burks

When he was a boy, he did something naughty. Not anything special but his father had the local constable put him in jail and he says that was why he was afraid of police.

Ernest Lehman

Paranoia is a good word to use with Hitch.

Eva Marie Saint

At the Chicago airport location, Hitchcock was in fine fettle and agreed to take some amusing publicity shots.

Patricia Hitchcock

He loved the limelight in being able to publicize his pictures and being able to talk about his work. But then when it came to his personal life he shunned it completely.

Eva Marie Saint

He loved playing the British film icon and, if he had a dark side, he had a great sense of humor about it.

Then we continued northwest again to Rapid City, South Dakota where Cary and I had a night on the town in our country best.

Before shooting began, the cast posed for publicity stills in front of the Rushmore monument. We had a good time trying on our Native American headdresses. Of course, we were promised one of our own headdresses by MGM but, naturally, we never got one. We were having so much fun that what came next was a complete surprise. Somehow word had gotten out about the planned chase across Mt. Rushmore and suddenly we were in the middle of a national controversy.

Ernest Lehman

The government found out that we were planning to stage killings on the faces of a national monument.

Robert Burks

The Interior Department wasn't giving us permission to shoot in the park.

Eva Marie Saint

It was never intended that we shoot on the actual monument.

Ernest Lehman

He was very upset at first.

Eva Marie Saint

Hitchcock felt the film defended democracy instead of defaced it but MGM smoothed over their concerns by promising the actors would never appear on the presidents' faces. But Hitchcock had the last word when MGM used this illustration of a somewhat altered Mt. Rushmore in their ads for the film.

Of course, The press had a field day with the Mt. Rushmore controversy. One newspaper editor suggested Hitchcock should go back to England and film people scampering on the queen's face. Without the permits to film at the monument they'd have to be created in miniature in Hollywood. So we packed up and headed home to shoot the interiors at MGM.

The first scenes filmed were those in the Plaza's Oak Bar where Cary is first abducted. These pages were shot in a mere two days. Then James Mason went to work playing the first scenes in which his character Vandamm, is revealed to the audience.

Ernest Lehman

I loved the way Hitch shot it with a kind of a move of the camera from one lamp to another as James Mason turns on the lights to get a look at this George Kaplan. A very elegant Hitchcock touch.

Eva Marie Saint

Hitch and Cary had worked on projects prior to "North by Northwest" and while they had respect for each other's opinions, there were a few wrinkles between them.

Robert Burks

There was something between them that wasn't always quite right.

Ernest Lehman

Because if you're doing a Hitchcock picture and you're Cary Grant, I think you're not gonna be the total center of all attention.

Robert Burks

When he was in charge, when he was the director and Cary was the actor, then everything worked out fine.

Eva Marie Saint

Then the company headed out to shoot the famous crop-duster scene in East Bakersfield, California. To begin with, the crew filmed the aerial establishing shot where a bus drops Cary off.

Robert Burks

Way off in the distance you could see a town. So that became a matte shot. I said: "I've never handled a matte shot from a crane. It'll be unsteady." Well, what we did is, we took four cables and we tied it off four ways and then lifted the crane a little so everything was tight. It worked.

Ernest Lehman

Nothing happens for almost eight minutes and it still holds your attention.

Eva Marie Saint

Even though it was early October, the climate was like a sweltering desert. This was one of the only times Hitch wore short sleeves on the set. For three days, poor Cary ran with a stunt plane swooping down at him or so it would seem. As nobody would think of putting Cary Grant in the position of getting decapitated by a plane some trick photography was used. I feel like a traitor telling you this but first the crew shot a swooping plane from a ditch and then, later, Cary was shot on a sound stage jumping into a fake ditch with the plane footage on a process screen behind him.

Robert Burks

The cornfield, we had to plant. We had to get cornstalks and put them in.

Ernest Lehman

Cary Grant rushes into the cornfield and ducks down on the ground and the plane loosens this poisonous crop-dusting powder all over him and he's gasping for breath and he rushes towards a car which is coming from afar and the camera follows him as he goes toward the car and he waves and the car refuses to stop. The next day, Hitch discovered that Peggy Robertson his script supervisor had forgotten to make sure that Cary was covered with crop dust in the shot where he runs across the field toward the car. And she burst into tears. She was hysterical. Hitch had to shoot the whole scene over again.

Patricia Hitchcock

We were there when they actually had the truck exploding. The company name on the truck was the company my husband was working for.

Eva Marie Saint

This was Cary Grant's stand-in, and he was wonderful. Not only was his resemblance to Cary incredible but he had his walk and his movements down pat. But that's mostly Cary out there running for his life in the scene that remains one of the greatest action sequences ever filmed.

The landing strip scenes were next. Here we went about the ordinary business of life on location if you want to call it ordinary. Then we moved into the scenes with Eve and Roger on the 20th Century Limited. First, we shot the dining car scene.

Ernest Lehman

On that scene, there was one line of dialogue she had in the dining car sequence where she says: "I never discuss love on an empty stomach." If you look at the film again, you'll see her lips are saying: "I never make love on an empty stomach." I think it was a little ahead of its time.

Eva Marie Saint

The next scene was in Eve's compartment. But the set was rather compact and I have a slight fear of enclosed spaces. However, I got through it, just doing take after take, kissing Cary Grant! Actually, we were both married and the only thing between us was mutual admiration. Not to mention that we were surrounded by a full crew of technicians. Hitchcock brought an amazing sense of intimacy to the screen through the use of movement.

Robert Burks

Hitchcock liked to enclose these intimate scenes and in some other films he's had the camera going around them. In this case you couldn't because the set was so small. So the camera was still and the people turned the idea being to get the visual effect of enclosing these people in a very intimate moment.

Eva Marie Saint

Today in love scenes, they show everything in explicit detail but I prefer it like in our picture where you're not sure what happens after the fade-out but your imagination fills in the blanks perfectly.

Shooting the Ambassador Hotel interiors took only four days. Though the scenes were fraught with tension, off-screen we were relaxed. We chatted between takes and even did the latest dance craze. A far cry from the anxiety on-screen.

I had a bike on the lot, and one day while I was out on a ride someone took a picture and left it in my dressing room with this fake traffic ticket. The MGM studio police had cited me for driving 60 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road. Other offenses included drunk driving, foul language and failure to pass a sobriety test.

Martin Landau

When we were doing the auction scene, he whispered something to Cary, he whispered something to James, he whispered something to Eva Marie and he passed me by. And I walked up to him. I said: "Is there anything you want to tell me?" I was a young actor, eager, you know. They were getting direction. He said, "Martin, I'll only tell you if I don't like what you're doing. You're projecting very well." I said, "Well, okay. That's nice." But I did feel left out. Hitchcock said, "Actors are cattle". He never said that. He said, "You must treat actors like cattle."

Eva Marie Saint

Along the way, we had a few visitors on the set, including Hitchcock-find Shirley MacLaine, actress Miyoshi Umeki and Pat Hitchcock, who was expecting her third child. A Egyptian producer and his leading lady made a visit, along with my husband. And finally, Princess Sophia of Greece. Then Saul Segal and the MGM brass came to visit the sound stage. Whether or not Hitchcock feared authority, here he's smiling that "reassure the money man" smile that never goes out of date.

One of the most notable mistakes that happens in the movie occurs when I fake shooting Cary at the observatory. Look behind me and you'll notice a small boy plugging his ears in anticipation of the shot. Obviously he sat through a few too many takes. Why this take was selected from all the ones we shot we will never know.

This vignette has always gotten a laugh...

[ scene of Cary Grant climbing through the hospital window into Patricia Cutts' room ]

Eva Marie Saint

We shot all the scenes at Vandamm's house, 14 pages of script in only six days. But Hitch was prepared and economical, and it went very smoothly.

Robert Burks

We did it on stage five at MGM and it was done with mattes but we were able to photograph underneath the house approaching the house, all sides, including the front door. So we shot four directions.

Eva Marie Saint

In this sequence, the script delves deeper into the character of Leonard.

Ernest Lehman

There's a little hint of homosexuality. Or was there more than a hint?

Martin Landau

Ernie Lehman actually wrote, "Call it my woman's intuition, if you will". I just felt it added something real. Jealousy can make someone do nasty things.

Eva Marie Saint

By this time, the budget, okayed by MGM at $3,000,000 was ballooning by the day. For example, Cary Grant's contract stipulated a specific amount of time for his services. When the film went over schedule the studio paid him an astronomical $5,000 a day. I should know, I went over schedule too at $2,000 a day.

For the reunion scene in the forest, we were shot on an MGM sound stage with a few rows of pine trees between us. This is one of Eve Kendall's best scenes.

Ernest Lehman

The head of the studio felt the scene was too long and Hitch would not cut a frame from it. So I think that was the only point at which he and the studio disagreed.

Eva Marie Saint

Then, at last, we shot on the gigantic Mt. Rushmore sets at MGM. And here, Bob Boyle and his crew achieved some of the greatest art direction ever shot on film. For five days, we climbed on ledges and peaks sculptured in concrete in front of an enormous backdrop stretching 30 feet high and 150 feet wide.

Robert Burks

I think it was one of the finest scenic paintings ever made because often with a scenic painting you put trees in front or a scrim over it, but we couldn't do that here.

Eva Marie Saint

The set was largely a very safe place, but once the man who was to catch me if anything happened looked away as I slipped and fell several feet, scraping my arm badly — an injury we used in the final film.

I hung from a cliff that appeared to be miles high but was only a few yards from a scaffold below. Cary saved me from a ledge that appeared to drop straight down. Actually, it was on a 45-degree angle. I couldn't have fallen if I wanted to. It looks dangerous, but really it was just a lot of fun.

Ernest Lehman

I think if you read the script, you'll see the train goes off. I didn't write the tunnel.

Robert Burks

The obvious parallel to the sexual act always gets a laugh. It may be trains had some sexual feelings for him.

Ernest Lehman

There's no way I can take credit for that. Damn it!

Eva Marie Saint

After 78 days in front of the cameras, "North by Northwest" finished shooting on December 16th, 1958. Even though it was more than a million dollars over budget, MGM was delighted with the results. Not long after, the film was scored by Bernard Herrmann whose contribution is one of the movie's greatest achievements.

Ernest Lehman

If it hadn't been for Herrmann, there would have been no "North by Northwest". Bennie Herrmann introduced me to Hitchcock. That's how it all came about. Just think of that.

Eva Marie Saint

MGM's publicity department created an elaborate press package for the movie. Madison Avenue's biggest firms created designs for the poster including these intriguing hopefuls. But it was this sketch that captured MGM's attention and eventually became one of the original posters. Later, foreign release posters brought forth stunning results as well.

Just like today, there were promotional tie-ins. A Mercedes-Benz that was in the film was advertised with the premiere. There was even a "North by Northwest" coloring contest with a book that had Cary running from the plane and of me hanging off Mt. Rushmore. But the best advertising weapon MGM had was in using the director in the original trailer.

[ footage from the trailer ]

For the "North by Northwest" world premiere in Chicago, Hitch was taking no chances with the safety of his brainchild.

[ publicity footage of Hitchcock handing the film canisters to security guards ]

Then later, we made an appearance at the movie's first public showing. Although a little nervous, I think Hitch really enjoyed the adulation. And finally, we went in and the picture started and we got a taste of what audiences have done ever since: they loved every minute of it.

This led to the biggest event of all — the premiere at Radio City Music Hall which was a spectacle unto itself boasting a live stage show included in the price of admission.

Ernest Lehman

Oh, it was a big hit.

Eva Marie Saint

At the end of 1959, "North by Northwest" had earned a substantial profit and made it to every top-10 list in the country. The film was nominated for five Oscars, though it lost in every category.

Ernest Lehman

"North by Northwest" was not the classic it has become. It kind of hung in there and it would be rereleased and it would be shown at festivals and it slowly became a famous picture.

Patricia Hitchcock

Oh, I think "North by Northwest" is very high as one of his best pictures. I saw it a few weeks ago. I never tire of seeing it. It's always new, it's fresh.

Martin Landau

A lot of people say it's a quintessential Hitchcock film because it has a lot of pieces from a lot of... "The Wrong Man"... "The 39 Steps"...

Robert Burks

What he was able to do was to take a small boy's fear of the dark and make it into a wonderful film.

Martin Landau

Right after that, of course, he went away from that big, rich-looking movie and went into a black-and-white period. The next picture was "Psycho".

Eva Marie Saint

"North by Northwest" is a film that has stood the test of time. Hitchcock's incomparable direction, Ernest Lehman's rock-solid script and Cary Grant's finest performance still casts a spell of greatness which I'm incredibly proud to have been part of. I'm Eve Kendall... Eva Marie Saint, and thank you for watching.