Review of North by Northwest (1959) by Robert A — 15 Feb 2016

Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest is a unique mystery thriller filmed from an original screenplay written by Ernest Lehman. Starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, North By Northwest leads the viewer from Madison Avenue to Mount Rushmore with twists and turns aplenty. Lehman's screenplay is celebrated as a classic of the spy thriller genre. Coming in at 181 pages, the screenplay exists as a voluminous example of Hollywood yesteryear.

As opposed to what screenplay craft has evolved into, Lehman's work, especially in action descriptions stands as ancestral predecessor. The iconic crop duster scene is laden with verbosity and camera instruction. (Lehman 94-100) Two things frowned upon by modern screenplay reading tastes. The signature of Lehman's work is to provide a blueprint for directors to work with. In this way, his screenplays act as a melding and deep focus of dialogue and action.

The act of providing camera direction seems a natural way to both formulate and tell a story. The unbelievable part of the collaboration between Hitchcock and Lehman on North By Northwest is the adherence of the director to the written vision on the page. In this instance, the brilliance of both artists shines through. This could be evidence of the six to nine month preproduction schedule wherein Hitchcock provided Lehman time and support to formulate the original screenplay. There are multiple spots where Hitchcock follows the script to the letter and spots where he deviates in imagery.

In a 2000 interview, Lehman spoke to the mercurial nature of writing an original screenplay:

"...when you're writing an original screenplay, you can't help but wonder where some of your ideas come from. Often, they just pop into your head in response to the questions you ask yourself. "How do I get out of this?" or "How do I get them to say that?".

This conceit from a legendary screenwriter speaks to the classic struggle of being able to generate within the craft while paying respect to the tangential part of the creative process. According to Lehman, Hitchcock forwarded the idea of ending the film at Mt. Rushmore. This suggested scene acted as the endpoint that Lehman reverse engineered the entire script from. This gives credence to the old adage that it helps to come up with the ending first.