North By Northwest

In North By Northwest Mad man Roger Thornhill (played with suave elegance by Cary Grant) is "mistaken for a much shorter man"  and pursued across America by a group of fifth columnists. The plot, which involved planes and trains and automobiles, was as preposterous as it was inspired, and screenwriter Ernest Lehman mixed the elements of intrigue, romance, suspense and comedy into a perfect cocktail with a wit as dry as a Gibson. It was, in fact, Herrmann who had introduced the writer to Hitchcock ("I've got to get you and Hitch together," the composer said. "I think you would hit it off very well."). Lehman was not the originator of the story for North By Northwest (the idea of a man assuming the identity of a fake masterspy had been gifted to Hitchcock by journalist Otis Guernsey, who had himself based his underdeveloped treatment of it on a real incident that happened in the Middle East in World War Two). During long story conferences with the director, Lehman shaped and polished the script until it purred and gleamed.

North By  Northwest was made at MGM - a studio known for its class and sophistication - and Herrmann's propulsive score began before the familiar lion mascot had finished its roar. Over an image of intersecting green lines (designed by Saul Bass, and anticipating the Psycho credits) the orchestra plays the "Overture", a dizzying fandango that the composer wrote for "the crazy dance about to take place between Cary Grant and the world." There is, indeed, something almost balletic in the way in which Grant moves. Watch how nimble and graceful he is when he escapes his hospital prison by climbing out onto the ledge and sneaking out through a neighbour's room. This scene, incidentally, contains one of my favourite moments in the movie when the startled female patient cries out for the intruder Thornhill to "Stop!", puts on her glasses and then repeats the word in a more inviting tone.

The script crackles with good dialogue ("Something wrong with your eyes?" "Yes, they're sensitive to questions." / "How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?" "Lucky, I guess."), the editing is razor sharp, the photography has a bright sheen that brings out the richness of the Technicolor, and the actors are tailored to within an inch of perfection (Grant is The Man in the Grey Kilgour Suit). Eva Marie Saint is the epitome of the icy Hitchcock blonde (a million miles away from her kitchen-sink performances of A Hatful of Rain and On the Waterfront). James Mason, as the diabolically named Vandamm, is the urbane villain whose velvety voice commands his lovesick second in command Leonard to commit unspeakable acts. Nobody involved in this movie - from the director down to the key grip - puts a foot wrong.

Herrmann was on form, too. His score may be a little monothematic - tellingly, he chose only to include an extended version of the overture for his Great Hitchcock Movie Thrillers disc and resisted arranging a suite of music from the film. That's not to say that it's all about the fandago. There's a nervous suspense theme woven throughout the score that sounds like a spy's Morse code message, some dark growling brass ("Car Crash"), and a lilting love theme ("Conversation Piece") which gently rocks to the rhythms of the Twentieth Century sleeper car.

As significant as the music Herrmann provides are the moments that he chooses to leave unscored. In the film's most celebrated scene Roger Thornhill waits to meet the mysterious Kaplan at an isolated bus stop and is menaced by a crop dusting bi-plane. The sequence has a slow burn build-up and a dynamite finish, and it plays out without a note of music. Herrmann, in fact, wrote a cue ("The Highway") for the start of the sequence, but it did not make it to the final cut. In its use of muffled timpani it recalls "The Coat" cue from The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.

The North By Northwest "Overture" is one of the usual suspects that is rounded up for any Herrmann compilation. The original sountrack was released on the Turner Classic Movies label (8 36025 2) and, for medium-level completists, includes source music and outtakes. Full blown completists also need to own the Varese Sarabande re-recording by Joel McNeely (VCL 1107 1067) as it contains the "previously unreleased" cue "The Highway" and an alternate version of "The Station" cue. This is obviously more information than you will ever need to know. I am not a Herrmann completist, but I have both discs, which I have just listened to back to back, and I now feel a sudden urge to go and watch my DVD of the film (which, incidentally, has an isolated film score track).