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Julio Gobea
Mr. Pierce
Unit 6 Essay #2
10/26/23
North by Northwest
Introduction
The 1959 movie North by Northwest, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, finds Roger
Thornhill (Cary Grant) is a New York City ad executive who finds himself pursued by Phillip
Vandamm (James Mason) after Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent. Thronhill is then
led on a cross-country adventure until he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), eventually
leading to a budding interest in two unlikely allies.
Sexual Innuendo
When it comes to explicitly sexual themes or jokes throughout the film, there are few to
choose from, but one large one to talk about. At the very end of the film, after everything has
wrapped up, Thronhill and Kendall end up on a train together, going to—who knows where? It
starts with Thronhill stepping on the hands of the evil Vandamm to cause him to fall and trying
to pull Kendall up from the cliff she is dangling from. This pull has them cut together, with
Thornhill pulling Kendall onto a bed within a train car room. This then results in them having a
passionate and very intimate kiss shared between the two. The camera then fully pulls out to
show a train rushing into a tunnel with credits overlaid. There is almost no dialogue through this
scene in the movie other than “Mrs. Thornhill,” implying she married him and has now taken on
his last name, which can also mean this is their honeymoon night. Now it may not be
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immediately apparent to people watching for the first or even second time what the innuendo
may be here, but when you figure it out, it is a slap in the face. This is not the raunchyest or
biggest innuendo that could be made at the time this movie was filmed, but I believe the wink
towards what was happening and the censorship of it actually plays well into the movie and its
blatant rip on spy thrillers.
Violence
This movie was set out to be a parody of the spy thriller genre of films at the time, so
naturally there are many scenes of violence and shootouts. While these scenes are numorous,
none ever felt censored or hampered down by the production code of their time. Hitchcock went
out of his way to make elaborate set pieces like Thronhill running down a field road as a biplane
flies towards him, firing constantly. While Thronhill could run in any direction away from the
fire, he continues to run straight ahead and not be hit by any of the bullets. There are many
shootouts that look natural to the environment the movie is set in, which again is an over-the-top
and elaborate plot that demands absurdity. The main character is not a spy, yet he is in their
shoes, having to wing it and luck his way out of situations. Punches that are thrown can clearly
be seen as not landing, but the impact of them is felt through the sound used to convey the hit.
Again, I do not personally think that the production code of the time hampered Hitchcock's view
and feel of his vision for this film. They further add to the comedy and absurdity of the situation.
Conclusion
I feel that if this movie was made today, the restrictions of the time wouldn’t really
change how the movie feels. The only main thing that would change would be the look of the
film grain and the “retro” nature of the astheics. The movie played up many of its action and
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violence scenes with absurdity rather than actually trying to make things feel gruesome or dark.
We want to root for this normal man put in the shoes of a role he wasn't ready for. He wasn't
taught to kill but is in those situations. The sexuality of the movie probably wouldn’t be much
different either. I feel things like sexual innuendos make it more into animated movies for the
parents who have to take their children to see them rather than movies that are just explicitly
about those things or made for people of certain ages. The innuendos are also there but not
played up and sometimes not even set up like the ending scene described above. If they were to
play them up or change them, it would again ruin the campy fun of the nature of this film. I felt
this movie worked better with the limitations in effect, even if it didn’t try to challenge them that
hard to begin with.