MGM Europe: North by Northwest 1959- The Best of Alfred Hitchcock

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

North by Northwest is my favorite movie of all time. Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time and Alfred Hitchcock is probably my favorite director of all time. I have a couple of versions of this movie on DVD, saw it on Turner Classic Movies a couple of nights ago and again on DVD last might. I decided to write a blog about it today because I’ve been thinking about it a lot. This movie is Cary Grant, perhaps the best comedic actor of all time, at his best.

North by Northwest has all the ingredients of a great Hitchcock movie. A great plot, great writing, great cast, Hitchcock’s sense of humor, that Cary Grant shares, and James Mason. The very sexy and beautiful Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, The Russians are Coming) has a big role in the movie. According to my father, she’s smarter, sexier, and more beautiful than Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe. She reminds him of my mother.

Then, there’s Jessie Royce Landis who plays Roger Thornhill’s (Cary Grant) mother, a great smart ass, even though she’s only four years older.

The movie is a Cold War thriller about a man, Van Damme (James Mason), who exports American weapons and national security secrets. Thornhill gets caught up in it, accidentally, and you have a great movie.

Thornhill is a charming playboy New York advertising man who’s just living his life as a very successful businessman. He’s kidnapped by Van Damme’s henchmen at a New York bar. They believe he has inside information about Van Damme’s organization.

The Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill but he gets away. He tries to get back in touch with Van Damme and instead connects with Lester Townsend, someone Van Damme had pretended to be. The Van Damme crew, trying to murder Thornhill, instead murder Townsend. They believe he also knows something about their organization that they want kept secret. Thornhill is now not only on the run from Van Damme and company but also from the NYC PD, the New York State PD, and the Feds.

Thornhill once again escapes and is now on the run from everyone because of the murder he didn’t commit. This time, he escapes by train where he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who just happens to be an undercover Federal agent pretending to work for Philipp Van Damme. She’s actually working to bring down Van Damme’s and his organization. She has Thornhill believing she’s on his side and helping him to escape. She’s actually just using him.

This movie starts in New York, moves to Chicago and then Indiana where the Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill and Thornhill is trying to meet the real George Kaplan to find out what this whole thing is about. The problem is that George Kaplan doesn’t exist. Back to Chicago Thornhill gets arrested again, thinking that he would be safer with the police than on the run. The Feds grab him instead and use him to help bering down Van Damme and company in Rapid City where Philipp Van Damme has a home.

This is one of the best action suspense comedies you’ll ever see.
MN Europe: Alfred Hitchcock- North by Northwest 1959 Trailer

Read Full Post »

Warner Brothers: Fair Game (1995) Starring Cindy Crawford & William Baldwin

Source:Alamy Stock Photo– Cindy Crawford and Billy Baldwin, couldn’t get enough of each other, so they handcuffed themselves to each other. LOL

You can also see this post at The Action Blog, on Blogger.

“Film Still from “Fair Game” Cindy Crawford, William Baldwin © 1995 Warner Brothers Photo Credit: Jon Farmer File Reference”

From Alamy

“Max Kirkpatrick is a cop who protects Kate McQuean, a civil law attorney, from a renegade KGB team out to terminate her.

Director: Andrew Sipes
Writers: Paula Gosling (novel), Charlie Fletcher (screenplay)
Stars: William Baldwin, Cindy Crawford, Steven Berkoff”

Source:Trailer Chan– Billy Baldwin and Cindy Crawford: hot for each other?

FromTrailer Chan 

I’ll be one of the first to admit that Fair Game is not a great movie, not even a very good movie. It’s a very entertaining movie with a lot of funny lines and some funny scenes. (Especially the edited version of the movie from TNT)

Take Cindy Crawford out of this movie and I sure as hell don’t have much reason to watch it. Actually I liked the Russian female terrorist. But probably not enough reason to watch a ninety-minute film by herself. Which is the Segway for what I really like about this movie.

Cindy Crawford, arguably the top supermodel of all-time and still one hell of a goddess today at 47 was my main motivation for seeing this movie 18 years ago and why I still see it again from time to time today. She’s one of the top goddess’ of all-time. About 5’9, 120 pounds or so, with gorgeous red hair and gorgeous eyes and a hot, baby-face. When she smiles back then and today you really get to see how adorable she is as well. She reminds me a lot of Raquel Welch and Eva Mendes reminds me of Cindy today as well as Raquel. Women who are hot, but almost can be little girl adorable.

And that is what you see in this scene from Fair Game, a gorgeous, sexy baby-faced woman, whose on the run from terrorists. Who needs access to a computer and she sees a computer geek who could help her and uses her goddess sex appeal to get from him exactly what she wants. Perhaps giving this poor schmuck the ride of his life, but a ride he’ll never forget. Giving him nothing to complain about from her since he’ll probably never forget her. A movie that’s not exactly a very clever movie, but does a good job at taking advantage of the tools around it. Like using sexuality to get what the sexy character wants.

You can also see this post on Blogger.

You can also see this post at The Action Blog, on WordPress.

You can also see this post at FRS FreeState, on Blogger.

Read Full Post »