Planes, Trains & Automobiles: Alfred Hitchcock Travels North by Northwest

 

When daily life seems bleak—surely the case in the past week or so—movies can waft us away to another place and time. I’m finding that watching a Hitchcock thriller helps to take the edge off more immediate worries. True, Hitchcock movies come in many shapes and sizes. Some are intimate; others were made on a grand scale. Some (like Psycho and The Birds) intend to scare the bejeezus out of us. Others wink at us that the dangers the characters face will eventually melt away.

 One of the very best in the latter category is 1959’s North by Northwest. This is a film that will give the viewer some queasy moments (notably in that scene in which Cary Grant is forced to drive drunk on a winding mountain road high above the Atlantic coast). But I suspect we’re more apt to feel gleeful as (in classic “wrong man” fashion) Grant’s stodgy businessman character is mistaken for a crafty spy, and then pursued all over the American continent by a group of thoroughly nasty types led by James Mason and a creepy Martin Landau. The very title “North by Northwest” wittily suggests deception. It’s borrowed from a moment in which Shakespeare’s Hamlet, feigning insanity in order to track his father’s killer, explains to the audience “I am but mad north-north-west. When the wind is southerly, I know a hawk from a handsaw.”  (I can’t resist noting that this scheme doesn’t conclude terribly well for Hamlet, who winds up dead. Cary Grant is considerably more fortunate. In fact, I can’t think of any movie in which Grant is bumped off. No matter the pickle in which he finds himself, he always survives . . .  and gets the girl.)

 The script for North by Northwest was dreamed up by Hollywood veteran Ernest Lehman, who also contributed to the scripts of such classics as Sabrina, The King and I, and Sweet Smell of Success. He and Hitchcock agreed on a thriller that would hop, skip, and jump across the American landscape, ending up with a fight to the finish on Mt. Rushmore. In some ways, the film can be seen as an offbeat ode to American forms of transportation. After that near-deadly car ride, Grant’s Roger Thornhill (now suspected of a murder he did not commit) tries to escape his pursuers by hopping aboard the 20th Century Limited, choo-chooing its way to Chicago. In a cozy compartment he finds an attractive young lady (Eva Marie Saint), who may not be what she seems. But blissful train travel is followed by a scary scene in which—after being summoned to a mysterious cornfield—he finds himself chased by a low-flying crop-duster plane, in what is probably the film’s most famous scene. At the climax, though, everyone is on foot, scrambling past Lincoln’s granite nose on a convincing-looking (but actually studio-made) Mt. Rushmore.  

 It’s scary, yes, but it’s a lark all the same. An earlier film of Hitchcock’s—one he has called his very favorite—is much darker in all senses. While North by Northwest glows colorfully, 1943’s Shadow of a Doubt is a small black & white thriller that for a while seems as innocent as an early sitcom. A large, chaotic but happy family in comfy Santa Rosa, California is welcoming the mother’s beloved brother, Charlie, who’s just arrived from the east coast. Especially thrilled is the household’s eldest daughter, who was nicknamed after her uncle. Young Charlie (Teresa Wright) feels her dashing, courtly uncle (Joseph Cotten) can do no wrong. Alas, what she doesn’t know CAN hurt her.

Fans of my friend and former Corman colleague Steve Carver are now mourning his death. As a quick tribute, here’s a link to one of my several blog posts about this talented director and photographer.

 

 

Capturing Old Hollywood by Way of “Western Portraits”

Cowboy hats. Bolo ties. Natty vests and fringed jackets. Silver belt buckles studded with turquoise. This was the garb of choice last Tuesday at the Autry Museum of the American West. In my everyday street clothes, I certainly felt underdressed.

We were all there to honor Steve Carver, whom I’ve known since he directed Big Bad Mama for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures back in 1974. After racking up more than a dozen feature film directing credits, Steve returned to his first love: still photography. Just in time for holiday gift-giving, he has published Western Portraits: The Unsung Heroes and Villains of the Silver Screen. It’s a carefully curated book of art photography, featuring well-known character actors from Steve’s Hollywood days decked out in western regalia. The cover is emblazoned with an unforgettable portrait of Steve’s longtime friend, the late David Carradine, complete with cigar and Stetson. Carradine solemnly stares out at the viewer with a tough-guy look that won’t be denied.

The power of Steve’s portraits grew out of his fascination with nineteenth-century photographic techniques. The pioneering work of Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) in chronicling the Old West has influenced Steve’s own methodology. He uses slow speed film that requires his subjects to hold a pose for a long few seconds. And—actors all—they are given the opportunity (through a series of conversations with Steve) to chose their characters and settings, within a wide range of Western environments. Buddy Hackett, for instance, is depicted with part of his collection of antique firearms. As Steve puts it, for his subjects this was “not just a snapshot. This was an experience.” He also insists that the stillness required for his very special photographs results in the subjects’ sharing of themselves. These are, he says, “pictures of their souls.”

To round out the volume, there’s a detailed filmography of all the western movies in which these actors have appeared. And Steve’s close friend, the novelist and screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner, has contributed essays based on his interviews with those of Steve’s subjects who are still with us. A sad number of those who have posed for Steve’s camera over the years are gone now, including R.G. Armstrong, Horst Buchholz (best known for The Magnificent Seven), Karl Malden, and—within the past year—both Morgan Woodward and Robert Forster.

What I hadn’t quite realized when Steve first mentioned this project to me, many years back, was how many enthusiasts there are for anything connected with the Old West. I saw that enthusiasm for myself at the Autry, where Western Portraits was the featured attraction of Rob Word’s long-running interview show, A Word on Westerns. Decked out in a jacket designed by the famous Nudie, Word was on hand to interview both Steve and Courtney with cameras rolling. And many of the book’s still-living subjects (actors like Bo Svenson, L.Q. Jones, Jesse Vint, and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson) came forward to pose for a group photo, as the audience in the packed auditorium cheered them on.

Clearly, it’s a tight-knit community. Attendees, hugging copies of Steve’s book, sought autographs from their favorites. And even some TV western stars who weren’t included in the book showed up for this very special occasion. Johnny Crawford of The Rifleman fame was there, now (alas) in the throes of Alzheimer’s disease. Tommy Nolan, who once starred as Jody O’Connell on a series called Buckskin., reminisced about his long-ago showbiz past.  Nolan, now a biographer-friend of mine, had left his Stetson at home. But not his passion for the Old West, as seen through Hollywood eyes. 

 Dedicated to the memory of Indiana

Steve Carver: Director, Photographer, Dog-Lover, Mensch

Temecula, a growing population center in Riverside County, California, today would be called suburbia. But back in 1974, Temecula was the real deal: a rural outpost far from anywhere. That’s why it became a principal location for a classic New World Pictures Depression-era crime romp, Big Bad Mama. Angie Dickinson starred as the sexy heroine; William Shatner and Tom Skerritt played her partners in crime and in bed. At the helm was Steve Carver, not only one of New World’s most promising young directors but indisputably the best-looking. (Forty years have passed, but Steve still has dazzling blue eyes that even Paul Newman might have envied.) I recently got together with Steve and his canine best friend, a sweet-natured Australian shepherd named Indiana, to wax nostalgic about his Roger Corman years.

 Steve came to filmmaking by way of art and photography. A documentary he’d shot in grad school got him admitted to the American Film Institute, then in its second year of trying to give talented young people a bridge into the industry.  In that era the twelve AFI fellows (including David Lynch and one token female) met informally at historic Greystone Mansion in Beverly Hills. There Steve talked turkey with such masters as Alfred Hitchcock, and came to regard both Charlton Heston and Gregory Peck as personal mentors. AFI taught him a key lesson: movies need to be not just arty but also entertaining. When his final AFI project, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” caught the eye of Roger Corman, Steve was ready to plunge into Corman’s wacky world of commercial filmmaking.

 After a stint dreaming up New World ad spots (“A thousand pounds of hot steel throbbing between their legs!”), Steve was sent off to Rome to direct a female gladiator flick called The Arena. (Becoming friendly with Fellini, who was shooting Amarcord on an adjoining set, was an unexpected dividend.)  In Rome perhaps his biggest challenge was respecting the superstitions of the local crew. But back home in California to make Big Bad Mama, he was suddenly working with big-name stars. The delightful Angie Dickinson approached the requisite nude scenes with cheerful audacity. Shatner, on the other hand, covered his privates with gaffer’s tape and generally refused to loosen up. He was also touchy about his toupée, which rambunctious co-star Skerritt enjoyed knocking askew. 

Steve made two more films with Corman connections: Capone (starring Ben Gazzara and up-and-comer Sylvester Stallone) and Fast Charlie, The Moonbeam Racer, on which he developed a high regard for the “quirky professionalism” of David Carradine. He also shot big-budget epics like Drum, a steamy melodrama set in the ante-bellum South. And increasingly over the years he was asked by studio honchos to take charge of overseas productions that had stalled. But coming onto a set to replace an ousted director could be daunting: “I hated the feeling of being hated.” Eventually, a few double-crosses further soured his feelings toward the industry. “Roger spoiled me,” he says now.  Big-league producers and financiers, often two-faced, “wore me down and chased me back to doing photography.” 

 That’s why he currently devotes his days to fine-art portraiture. He’s especially fond of old-school techniques that require long exposures. He plans to publish a book called The Dying Breed, highlighting the formal portraits he’s taken of some of Hollywood’s old guard. The aim is to “capture an image of these character actors to preserve their legacy.”  His late friend David Carradine, for one, lives on in a photo (above) that speaks volumes. As Steve now believes, “You can only capture truth with a still camera.”  

 Here’s a small gallery of  photos of and by Steve Carver:

Steve Carver directing Capone

On the set of Drum, Steve with Yaphet Kotto and boxing champ Ken Norton

Steve's formal photo of the Capone cast, featuring Ben Gazzara and the young Sylvester Stallone  

New World cheesecake: Margaret Markov and Pam Grier in The Arena 

Man's Best Friend: Indiana (Steve tells me she has a blue merle coat and speaks five languages fluently)