Line #14 Trivia/NorthByNorthwest


1	* ActorSharedBackground: Like Thornhill, Creator/CaryGrant was twice-divorced at the time, though Grant was married to his third wife (and ended up getting married ''five'' times when all was said and done).
2	* CaliforniaDoubling:
3	** The entire crop duster scene was supposedly set in Indiana southeast of UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}, but actually filmed near Bakersfield, UsefulNotes/{{California}}.
4	** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
5	** Vandamm's house behind Mount Rushmore. Anyone who's been to Mount Rushmore knows there aren't any houses within several miles. Not to mention the topography is all wrong. [[RuleOfCool It does make for a good climax, however]].
6	* CompletelyDifferentTitle:
7	** In Portugal and Latin America, the film was released as ''Intriga Internacional'' ("International Intrigue").
8	** In Spain, it was released as ''Con la muerte en los talones'' ("With Death on His Heels," meaning either "[With] Death in Close Pursuit" or conversely "In Close Pursuit by Death").
9	** In Sweden, it was released as ''I sista minuten'' ("At the Last Minute").
10	** In Germany, the movie's title is ''Der unsichtbare Dritte'' ("The invisible third one/person").
11	* TheDanza: A near-miss with Creator/EvaMarieSaint as Eve Kendall, but long before Saint was hired, the character actually ''was'' named Eva in the initial drafts of the screenplay.
12	* DawsonCasting: Both leads were older than their characters. Eve is stated as being in her 20s, while Creator/EvaMarieSaint was in her mid-30s. It's not clear how old Roger is supposed to be, though his being a Madison Avenue executive with two failed marriages to his credit, but with a mother who was clearly not that elderly, suggests late 30s or early 40s. Creator/CaryGrant was in his mid-50s at the time.
13	* ExecutiveMeddling:
14	** The final shot of the film was to be the two leads climbing into bed on their train and sharing a passionate kiss with "The End" superimposed over it, but UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode objected, saying it implied that the couple were going to have sex (not an unreasonable conclusion) and demanded a change. In classic Hitchcock form, he obliged and changed it to a cut-away of their train [[FreudWasRight going into]] [[VisualInnuendo a tunnel.]]
15	** The studio came close to forbidding the use of Mount Rushmore in the climax. Hitchcock ended up compromising by never showing any of the presidents' faces in the same shot as any violence.
16	* NeverWorkWithChildrenOrAnimals: Thornhill is shot in the Mount Rushmore visitor center. After the scene was filmed, one could see that a little boy had put his hands on his ears before the gunfire. Hitchcock proclaimed that after this, he'd just work with people who were either adult or deaf.
17	* ThrowItIn: An unintentional one. When Eve [[spoiler:shoots Roger in the restaurant with the blanks]], a child actor covers his ears before the gunshot happens. The take was still used, since aside from this, it was the best take.
18	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
19	** As has often been noted, this is perhaps the closest we got to Hitchcock doing a Franchise/JamesBond film.
20	** Legend has it that Hitchcock denied Creator/JimmyStewart the part of Thornhill because he thought he was too old for it... so instead he got Creator/CaryGrant, who was even older than Stewart. (Another theory is that the less-than-spectacular box office reception for ''Film/{{Vertigo}}'' caused a falling-out between Hitchcock and Stewart, hence no ''North by Northwest'' for the latter). Other actors considered or suggested for the role included Creator/GregoryPeck, Creator/WilliamHolden, Music/FrankSinatra, and Music/DeanMartin.
21	** Creator/{{MGM}} wanted Creator/CydCharisse to play Eve Kendall (since she was under contract to the studio) and Cary Grant pushed for Creator/SophiaLoren (who he'd reportedly fallen for while working together on ''Houseboat''). Hitchcock also considered Creator/ElizabethTaylor and Creator/VirginiaMcKenna before settling on Eva Marie Saint. Creator/GraceKelly would have gotten the role if she weren't busy being Princess of UsefulNotes/{{Monaco}}.
22	** Creator/YulBrynner and Creator/CurdJurgens were considered for Phillip Vandamm.
23	** While the film was still in the early scripting stage, a scene taking place at an assembly line in UsefulNotes/{{Detroit}} was envisioned, where the camera would follow two men as they talked while a car was built behind them piece by piece... and at the end, one of the characters would open a door of the now-finished car and a corpse would fall out! Part of this sequence actually inspired one moment in Creator/StevenSpielberg's ''Film/MinorityReport''.
24	** Hitch himself noted that he wanted the climax to involve the heroes interacting with the faces on Mt. Rushmore, rather than just climbing ''around'' them. Specifically, he wanted Cary Grant to hide for a moment in one of the noses... [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments and then have a sneezing fit.]] While the scene was filmed on a sound-stage using a model of the monument, so there was no risk of damage to the monument, there was a small public outcry during the film's production, which complained that climbing over the presidents' faces would be disrespectful, so Hitchcock had to agree that the movie would not have characters actually touch any of the faces.
25	* WordOfGay: Creator/MartinLandau stated in interviews that he portrayed Vandamm's henchman Leonard as a closeted homosexual who was secretly jealous of Eve Kendall's relationship with his employer. In the scene where he revealed to Vandamm that Eve was secretly working for the Feds, he commented, "Call it my woman's intuition, if you will..."
26	* WorkingTitle:
27	** ''The Man in Lincoln's Nose'', ''Breathless'', ''In a Northwesterly Direction''.
28	** Ironically, ''North by Northwest''. The title was suggested by an MGM publicity person, and Hitchcock initially intended it to be a placeholder until he could come up with a "better" title.
29	* WriteWhoYouKnow: Even after basing the murderer in ''Film/RearWindow'' on David O. Selznick, Hitchcock couldn't resist a few more digs at his former boss-turned-nemesis. Roger Thornhill's MysteriousMiddleInitial is "O.," but it doesn't stand for anything, which was also the case with Selznick's "O." Also, Thornhill dictating a memo even while he's leaving work was based on Selznick's habit of constantly dictating memos to secretaries while he was doing other things.
30	----
31	!!Misc. Trivia
32	* Future horror film director Creator/GeorgeARomero, then 19 years old, worked on the set as a grip. He later said that he was turned off by what he termed Hitchcock's "mechanical" directing style.

Context Trivia / NorthByNorthwest