Lengthy earlier than James Bond ever ordered a martini or shot down a henchman in Dr. No, Alfred Hitchcock had already stitched collectively the cinematic DNA of 007 in North by Northwest.
Hitchcock’s thriller, launched in 1959, three years earlier than Sean Connery donned the tux, was virtually a James Bond prototype in every part however title. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill, a sharp-suited advert man mistaken for a spy, finds himself dodging bullets, seducing mysterious ladies, and leaping throughout iconic landmarks.
Properly, it sounds acquainted, proper? It ought to as this was the trendy, danger-laced system that may come to outline Britain’s most well-known undercover agent.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Gamble After Vertigo
Hitchcock wasn’t new to suspense by any stretch. He’d been crafting pressure because the silent period. However following the lukewarm reception of Vertigo, he craved one thing much less cerebral and extra electrical.
He reached for an concept that had been percolating in his thoughts consisting of a whirlwind of espionage, mistaken identification, romance, and set items he’d lengthy dreamt of filming. A crop-duster divebombing a person in an empty cornfield, a high-stakes scramble throughout Mount Rushmore – all of the cinematic fireworks and not using a solemn bone in its physique. The consequence was a blockbuster blueprint for the spy thrillers of the following decade.
Ian Fleming’s Bond Was Ready within the Wings
In the meantime, Ian Fleming had been writing Bond novels because the early ’50s, however getting them to display was proving sophisticated. A TV adaptation of On line casino Royale had already aired in ’54, however larger plans have been gradual to materialize. Studios struggled with casting and rights, and couldn’t agree on which guide to make use of. There was speak of Thunderball because the jumping-off level. All of the whereas, North by Northwest was dazzling audiences with all of the aptitude, and polish that Bond movies would later declare as their very own.
The Blueprint for Britain’s Biggest Spy
Hitchcock’s suave, quick-witted Thornhill, who’s British, charming and effortlessly trendy, might’ve slipped into MI6 with barely a dressing up change. Reverse him, Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall supplied the archetype of the seductive lady with secrets and techniques, a blueprint later seen within the likes of Vesper Lynd and Pussy Galore.
The villains have been chilly, refined overseas brokers on the hunt for microfilm, not nuclear codes, however shut sufficient and the chase took audiences from the boardroom to the plains to presidential stone faces.
The parallels solely multiplied from there. From Russia With Love, Bond’s second cinematic outing in ’63, lifted closely from Hitchcock’s playbook. Its helicopter pursuit mimicked the crop-duster terror, whereas tense train-car confrontations bore the unmistakable fingerprints of North by Northwest. Even the manufacturing crew flirted with continuity and Cary Grant himself was approached to be the primary James Bond. The catch was that he solely needed to commit to at least one movie, not an ongoing sequence. And because of this, it made issues simpler for Sean Connery to enter into the combination.
Although Hitchcock pivoted to darker territory with Psycho only a yr later, it’s North by Northwest which will have left his most lasting cinematic fingerprint. It didn’t simply affect Bond, it cleared the trail. With out it, the early 007 movies could have stumbled looking for their stride, and visible rhythm. The Bond legacy will surely exist, however maybe stripped of the polish and swagger that Grant and Hitchcock first dropped at the display.
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