{"id":386,"date":"2008-08-08T10:29:57","date_gmt":"2008-08-08T14:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/386"},"modified":"2008-08-08T10:29:57","modified_gmt":"2008-08-08T14:29:57","slug":"north-by-northwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/386","title":{"rendered":"North by Northwest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched North by Northwest (again) last night; what a wonderful movie. So <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/doncoyote\/sets\/72157604508011487\/\">cool<\/a> &#8211; the clothes, the 20th Century Limited, the cars (especially the Continental convertible), <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jetsetmodern.com\/modatmovies.htm\">Vandamm&#8217;s house<\/a> on the top of Mt. Rushmore and it&#8217;s furnishings, even the tail of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aeroplaneart.com.au\/Images\/JSJ_Lockheed_L1049G_Super_Constellation.jpg\">Connie<\/a> in the Chicago airport scene. Just enough vinegar to cut the sweet &#8211; at least for a modern viewer &#8211; the black faces of the porters on the train are a reminder of how other Americans experienced the 50s.<\/p>\n<p>My favorite aspect of the movie (at this moment &#8211; subject to change without notice) is the double <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mcguffin\">MacGuffin<\/a>. Sure there are the government secrets on microfilm that motivate <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Man_from_U.N.C.L.E.#History\"><strike>Alexander Waverly&#8217;s<\/strike><\/a> The Professor&#8217;s pursuit of Vandamm, but I also think Kaplan counts as a MacGuffin &#8211; he is Vandamm&#8217;s central concern. Hitchcock makes it clear early in the movie that Kaplan doesn&#8217;t exist &#8211; a perfect placeholder for the characters to play-act around. What could be better? Hitchcock: &#8220;People, there&#8217;s nothing there, but I&#8217;m going to use that empty suit as the center of the story &#8211; watch me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Put it in your movie queue and when it arrives, mix yourself a nice Gibson, sit back and enjoy. (Editorial comments: 1) Gin, dammit. 2) If you don&#8217;t want to drink vermouth, don&#8217;t &#8211; just call it a cold glass of gin w\/ onion or olive &#8211; dirty martinis are acceptable &#8211; the second component bumps it back to cocktail status).<\/p>\n<p>And the last shot? Canonical.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/oldcarandtruckads.com\/Ford\/index57-70.html\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/oldcarandtruckads.com\/Ford\/index57-70.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/oldcarandtruckads.com\/Ford\/1958_Lincoln01.jpg\" width=\"398\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched North by Northwest (again) last night; what a wonderful movie. So cool &#8211; the clothes, the 20th Century Limited, the cars (especially the Continental convertible), Vandamm&#8217;s house on the top of Mt. Rushmore and it&#8217;s furnishings, even the &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/archives\/386\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-random-stuff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdqxx-6e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/hawkdog.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}