North by Northwest

I don't have anything interesting or coherent to say about it. Just that Cary Grant was in pretty good shape. He was fifty-five years old and has a scene where he runs at full speed. This is Tom Cruise's thing---he runs in every movie. He compared himself to an Olympic athlete, but Cary Grant did the same thing without making a big deal out of it.

I recently mentioned Ralph Reed who played a 14-year-old in High Noon. There he was again in North by Northwest as the bellhop who says he's not allowed to send a telegram for Cary Grant. "I'm not permitted to do that, sir," he says. It's hard to believe his bosses told him, "And another thing---NO TELEGRAMS!"

That bellhop caused Cary Grant's whole ordeal. How many people died because of his sloth?

It was Martin Landau's first movie. He decided to play his character as gay. He thought he was subtle enough that most people wouldn't notice, but he was warned that people might think he was gay in real life. Could this be why he was in so many things with his wife, Barbara Bain? I doubt it. But he appeared with her in Mission Impossible, Space 1999, and The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island, as if to say, "See? I'm not gay!"

Landau's career really blossomed once they divorced. Poor Barbara Bain was like Sonny Bono watching Cher's career take off.