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Smack in the middle of flat, The Rolling Roadshow screens NORTH BY NORTHWEST & Harry is there for it all!
Shafter, California… It’s a few miles north of Bakersfield. I completely am unfamiliar with the place. After THE LAST COMMAND, we busted ass to Zion National Park. What a world! Such mountains thrusting out of such gorgeous valleys. Gorgeous, stunning, majestic. Then we went to Las Vegas – the noisy superheated night of neon and decadence. The nephew wants to go in every adult theme park, but like so many places on this trip… We’re there long enough for impressions – emotional reactions. Vegas after the natural beauty that we’ve been through the last few days is more about the futile attempt of man to try to outshine the natural world. We eat and head for Los Angeles.
We decided to go ahead and establish a base of operations here in L.A. I’ve got business to take care of here, friends to hook up with and films to watch. The nephew is fixating on the idea that DISNEYLAND is here, he’s being an extraordinarily good boy. Strange the power of Disneyland on a mind that can’t conceive of what it is really like.
But for now… we’re here… in Shafter, California. Flat, doesn’t quite do it justice. There are fields everywhere around here. Vineyards, Orange Groves and even a cornfield or two. This is the first time on the trip where we just couldn’t find the screening location. We had the power of Google maps helping us… but somehow out here in the flatter than flat world – we can’t seem to find a big truck that says ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE on the side of it. What… The… Hell?
Then Suddenly we find 3 biplanes – and I realize – we’ve got to be relatively close. I call Tim: “Tim, I’m at 3 biplanes, where are you?” – “300 hundred yards south of there!” Dad and I look at each other, pull out the compass… look South, we can’t see him. This is insane. We back up, get on this tiny road and slowly head south. Suddenly there’s the truck… it came out of nowhere. This Shafter place, it’s tricksy.
With the flatness – lack of telephone poles anywhere… you could totally see how this isolated middle of nowhere hunk of nothing would have appealed to Hitchcock. I was finishing up my report on THE LAST COMMAND when I pulled up to park, so I stayed in the Argo a bit longer. I’d look out the window of the car – this is everything that I wasn’t talking about in describing Utah. This place is devoid of beauty or loveliness. This truly feels like the middle of nowhere. I long to be back amongst the mountains, the towering trees and the buttes.
As I get out of the car, fairly instantly I begin to be interviewed by local press. It seems many somehow get the idea that this whole thing is my idea. Which it isn’t. The Rolling Roadshow is Tim League and the Alamo Drafthouse’s senior programming teams love child. My contribution would be idle chatter with Tim, where I’d say something along the lines of, “Ya know what would be cool?” and then blather on about some geeky detail. Some of which he did use, but most of which he was already doing. I’m just a tourist on this trip and I’m having the time of my life. However, that doesn’t stop the questions. I got interviewed about 6 times at this location. And would escape under the auspices of getting photos of the biplanes swooping from out of the sky.
I love biplanes. They’re like kites that man controls from the sky, rather than the land. They’re graceful aerial ballet dancers. They began when the sun was still well into the sky. But it continued as the sun began kissing the endless distance – the blues deepened and the reds and oranges and golds of sunset were around. Some from the crowd faux ran in terror from the biplanes, but all I could see was the beauty of these vintage Stearman biplanes. I loved the engines’ roar. Terribly cool. Oddly – it wasn’t Bernard Herrmann I was hearing in my mind, probably because Herrmann and Hitchcock wisely chose not to place any music at all over the infamous scene… but Steiner’s final bombastic bits to KING KONG. This landscape was as far as humanly possible from the gorgeous towers and peaks of man-made Manhattan, but Kong haunts the biplane for me.
I’ve loved WINGS and HELL’S ANGELS… but I see these soaring bits of timber and pulp, probably fiberglass and steel today as far as I know, but I look and by golly, I hear the roar of Kong, in my mind’s eye I just can’t get the top of the Empire State Building out of my skull.
But then I open my eyes and I see the landscape of NORTH BY NORTHWEST – amongst my very favorite Hitchcock films. In my mind, this was the grandest version of 39 STEPS that Hitchcock ever made. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love THE 39 STEPS – have a gorgeous original film print of it – Mr. Memory rules. It is just that… VistaVision is so damn gorgeous… and Technicolor… wow.
The first time I saw this film theatrically – it was at Hogg Auditorium at the University of Texas. Oh, and Ernest Lehman was there. He told us how the film was a wild runaway train of a production. How he was working and writing the script as they went. Knowing only that the end would somehow be upon Mt Rushmore, but Ernest was desperately trying to churn out pages. And he wound up with a terrible case of writer’s block. You know the scene where Cary Grant meets James Mason, Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau at the tourist center at Mt Rushmore? Well, for Lehman, he couldn’t figure out how this wasn’t “The End” – how on earth does he keep it going from there. The week of the shoot came, and the scene still wasn’t written – and Hitch went to Ernest and asked what the problem was – and Lehman confessed the terrible secret of “block” and how he just doesn’t know what the hell happens there.
Hitchcock allegedly looked at Lehman and said in that voice of his. “Shoot Him.” And it was as if the dry cliffs of Niagara suddenly blossomed forth with the millions of gallons an hour. Ernest kicked out the rest of the script almost instantly.
When looking at NORTH BY NORTHWEST – the concept of “Script Problems” and “Making it up as we went” just seems the furthest possible thing in the world. The movie moves so effortlessly, as though it were the most carefully thought out and planned film. That just happened to feel as though things were spontaneously happening in the various locations. This film is perfect. I have always felt that.
That being said, I was absolutely convinced that it would bore my nephew to death. His verbal skills aren’t quite up to the innuendo and quick repartee of Lehman’s fantastic script. And the action is notably less dynamic than say… oh IRON MONKEY or SPIDER-MAN 2 to a 5 year old.
Well – the biplanes captured his imagination. And the film, due mostly, I’d say, to Bernard Herrmann’s amazing score fascinated the little kid. He stayed with it all the way through and he actually prefers the film to PLANET OF THE APES. That’s so cool.
As for me, watching it out here in Shafter, California… with the twilight dance of mechanized man kites… It pretty much ruled. Every time I watch this film, it feels like the best movie ever. And Eva Marie Saint’s seduction of Cary Grant is the most authentically forward woman I think I’ve ever seen on film. She WANTS him and that’s delicious to me. Absolutely fantastic. Eva is just so visibly ready for “it” with Cary Grant. And Grant? He couldn’t be more ready to enjoy “it” too. The glee and surprise on his face is that wonderfully goofy look of all men when beautiful women invite a rendezvous for an evening.
I wonder how many single men and single women took train trips after seeing this film? Right? It’s just so damn perfect and enticing. When the film got to the crop-dusting sequence, you felt the audience electrify even more so than throughout the rest of the film. And is there a cooler villain than James Mason? His voice is just so damn delicious – and his beady eyes. Fantastic. Then there’s Landau and that crew cut guy. How great are they? Then there’s the wonderful matte work of Matthew Yuricich. You could never make the UN building look that cool with a crane or a helicopter. Or any of the other great establishing shots in this film.
Oh, I forgot – before the film Tim had found this lady that was 8 months pregnant at the time Hitchcock shot the infamous scene. Recently – she has joined some writing group where everyone in the group is writing out their life stories – and one day several months ago – she wrote a 3 page account of her time on the set of NORTH BY NORTHWEST. You see – all those years ago, she was a pronounced 8 months waddling pregnant lady… and her best friend was also 8 months pregnant. They heard about the shooting and squeezed into their red MG and drove out to the set location. Once they got there, Cary Grant’s chauffeur took a liking to their MG and invited them to park next to Cary’s limo – and over the course of the 3 days of shooting – they had ringside seats for the entire production. They watched the local crop-duster desperately trying to stay in frame. They watched Cary Grant duck down – and then the real stunt double doing the truck stunt, then Cary getting up again as if he’d barely escaped death. Her young daughter ruined an expensive shot on the second day… and while the main crowd was told to go away on the third day due to noise, the chauffeur had them invited in again – even though THEY were the guilty parties. More than her story – out there in the limelight of the spot – this ol sweetie was reading her story with such enthusiasm. Such a genuine sense of being thrilled to have seen cinematic history unveiled. Really was great.
The crop-duster apparently lost track of time or got called away on some sort of business – but ya know what? As cool as that would have been, honestly – this movie and that little ol lady’s story thrilled me. Watching the swooping, and seeing this with such a jazzed crowd of locals just enthusing such joy for being there. It was great. This was also a very very very good sized crowd. A little tentative in regards to the screen and sitting close, but when Tim told them not to be afraid, and I charged to take my regularly up close position… They all followed closely.
This was an outstanding evening. Not as purely magical as Archer City, Monument Valley or Lake Powell – but this flat desolate looking space… For all the absence of majesty… in that absence of beauty – it like Saul Bass’s minimalist titles – was as cinematically iconic as any of these other grand vistas. I hope at some future time we do this film at Mt Rushmore.
That was that screening, next it is on to Los Angeles and REPO MAN… in a seriously urban environment! Technically, I'm behind. Tonight is BULLIT in Washington Square - and it is free. So hopefully I'll see some of you down there. And I'll get my REPO MAN up soon.
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if i'm not first i don't care.i just got the gorgeous fire and ice dvd and the kanye west cd.so EAT IT.
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Actually one of the best cd's I've listened to in awhile. Harry, sounds great. Pure Hitchcock genius. Still kinda holds up well today. I can only imagine on a big screen in that enviornment. Good to see you're heading to the hellhole known as LA. Maybe I'll see ya and I hope you get to see some great movies.
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But I would love to see pics of the film in action. I know it's dark, blah blah blah, but come on it would've been cool to see a shot of Planet of the Apes on that big rock. But otherwise cool pics from this whole thing.
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North by Northwest is one of my favorite movies, and I'm not just saying that because I'm in advertising. And also, Bakersfield is the armpit of California.
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what's with the lack of talkback here? usually there's tons of messages after 2 hours of something being posted. What's the deal? Harry, gotta say, I'm really enjoying these things you're writing. Diary? journal? memoir? I dunno but me like. Keep it up dude.
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Look for the boy covering plugging his ears before Eva Marie Saint plugs, uh, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant).
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Aug 30, 2005 9:37:21 PM CDT
Tim League and Harry Knowles have really turned film geekery int
by 3 bag enema
Well, they will be legendary, once they're on the verge of death. Right now, they're in the thick of it, and we get to watch. Very cool.
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this whole thing is probably the best series of articles i've seen on AICN and definitely the best writing harry's ever done. keep up the good work. god i wish i could make it out to one of these...can anyone think of a good film that relates to colorado that would give them an excuse to come through denver? i am drawing a total blank right now...
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Hey Lopan, there is a Rolling Roadshow happening in Colorado. It's a western - Cat Ballou. It was nominated for 5 Academy Awards in 1966 and won one of them. I belive the showing is in Canon City, if you're willing to drive a couple hours.
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the comic book tweeners have driven most of us away. The screeching, smart-ass jerks wouldn't know Bernard Hermann from Ernest Lehman.
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Good article, though the PotA/LPS/WuatitW still remain the best youve written. but shouldnt somebody get that kid a haircut? carrot tops aint pretty even when theyre well groomed...
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FUCK YES! i am SO there... assuming it's on a day i can make it out. that is so cool, i'm not all that crazy about cat ballou but just the experience would be fantastic. thanks for the info
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I think this is my favourite film of all time. The script is so witty, the plot is so gripping, the music is perfect, the casting is perfect. And a climax on top of a national monument.
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Sorry, accidentally bumped the enter button.
Lopan, and anyone else in Colorado, the Rolling Roadshow screening of Cat Ballou is on labor day. You can find the info pretty easily on the Alamo Drafthouse website.
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