The Bizarre Process of Writing ‘North by Northwest’ | Screenwriting

Today, I want to take a look at how Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman managed to take a vague mistaken-identity concept and a Hitchcockian set piece and turn it into the iconic adventure we have come to know.

This video essay was written, edited, and narrated by Tyler Knudsen.

Sources:

Hitchcock at Work by Bill Krohn
Hitchcock/Truffaut
Destination Hitchcock - The Making of North by Northwest

DelicTrips - Like Water

SiM – ErOs

Frank T. - Slices of Focus - Slice 7

[CinemaTyler]

Hi everybody! This is a re-upload of the video I published yesterday. Several people pointed out how repetitive the music was, so I added more tracks to break up the monotony. It also allowed me to add in another interview clip that I had forgotten to include. I worked really hard on this video, so I figured I’d fix these issues while it is still new and the view-count is still low. Thanks for watching!

[lanbar]

I saw this movie when it came out in 1959, I was 14. From that time on, I wanted to go to Mount Rushmore. I finally made it three years ago. I was not disappointed. I got to meet Nick Clifford, the last surviving carver, he was 17 when he worked there. He died soon after.

[kirsteni.russell]

NORTH BY NORTHWEST is one of my all-time favorite movies, and has been since I first saw it when I was going on twelve years old. Love this history of the making of the movie!

[Griffinmc]

Thanks so much for these, Tyler. My wife and I met in film school and have spent our long marriage dissecting movies together (we went on to other non-film related careers) and are especially enamored of Hitchcock's genius. Much appreciated, sir.

[SaBoRhbg]

One of Hitchcock's masterpieces, no doubt.

[InFltSvc]

This is one of my all time favorite pictures. Whenever I want to run away from the crazy would of 2019, I love to chill, lower the lights and enjoy a picture like this. These were the days of great pictures and talent like. Picnic, Dark Passage, Rear Window, Christmas in Connecticut, The Little Shop Around the Corner to name a few...

[SaturnCanuck]

Excellent, as always. I look forward to the Cropduster scene breakdown.

I once read a quote from Hitchcock saying, "There are no symbols in 'North by Northwest'. Oh, yes, the train going into the tunnel is phallic -- but don't tell anyone"

[hebneh]

I've always like that final dubbed line, "Come along, Mrs. Thornhill", regardless if it was only added to placate the censors. It's really a "happily ever after" finale, and it feels good after all the trauma the two lead characters have just been through. It's much better than the two of them embracing in the upper berth, unmarried.

[johngraves]

I knew a lot of this stuff but there was a lot of new information here. Fascinating and well put-together!

[jeffreyfiske]

North by Northwest IS a real direction.  On a compass dial it is half-way between North and Northwest, or 337.5 degrees.  The actual direction Roger Thornhill travels in the movie is West by Northwest.  However, in the play HAMLET, Hamlet is described as being North by Northwest, meaning that he is a little off (mentally).  So, the movie title is taken from HAMLET and is meant to describe Thornhill suddenly being thrust into a slightly insane situation

[williams.]

Tyler, not that 60k isn’t a lot, but I don’t know how you don’t have hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Yours is my favorite channel on the art of cinema. Keep up the excellent and in-depth work, sir!

[Derek_Smallshorts]

I frickin' LOVE this film. I saw it when I was a teenager when they did a special screening a the Pictureville in Bradford (in the UK) and although I'd seen it a million times on TV, seeing it on a huge screen was awesome. I love how Cary Grant pays it suave but is quietly freaking out about the whole thing all the time. Instead of a cool guy not looking at explosions, when the plane crashes into the tanker he minces away as though he just knocked a statue off a shelf and doesn't want anyone to think it's his fault. And anything with James All The Best People Shave Twice A Day Mason is epic.

[grammapolice]

FYI, Re: @3:40 ... NNW and NNE are real directions used in orienteering.

[joepalooka]

Great video, but you forgot to mention one of the most important parts of North By the music! The score is by Bernard Hermann, who also did Psycho and Citizen Kane and many other Hollywood classics. The music in North by Northwest contributes hugely to the mood and pacing of the film, and it's one of the greatest scores every composed.

[Thespeedrap]

I saw this movie last night and it still looks better everytime you watch it.

[anunexaminedlife]

I admire your dedication to putting out a quality product even at the risk that some of your viewers will opt out of seeing the new version. Keep up the good work. I have no doubt it will pay off ten fold

[trampassmith]

I read a lot of the correspondence between Hitchcock and Lehman regarding this movie. It’s in the Ransom Center at UT Austin. There are several drafts of the screenplay and dozens of letters, telegrams and handwritten notes on hotel stationary (Lehman often drank to generate ideas). Hitchcock didn’t seem to do any actual writing, but he was blunt in his notes, some of which are typed out, while others are handwritten on the script.

[joepalooka]

North by Northwest is a brilliant movie. I've seen it at least 10 times. It's always great to watch again. It's a great story, a great screenplay, and it's cast perfectly. It's a masterpiece of movie making, and one of Hitchcock's best. The crop duster scene is one of the most famous scenes in movie history. Last but not least, the musical score is excellent, and one of the greatest ever composed.

[schizoidboy]

I remember this show called Hollywood Babylon where Tony Curtis described the one time Hitchcock described a scene where a man parachutes into a forest, gets on a motorcycle, and rides to the back of a restaurant whereupon he takes off his overalls revealing he's wearing a waiter's uniform. Tony Curtis asked him what came next to which Hitchcock replied he didn't know because he was still thinking it out.

[JohnMoseley]

I love the comparison of the writing process to improvisation, along with Lehman's faith in the right brain. This is what's totally missing from the screenwriting manuals and it's so much more fun and satisfying to write like this than to follow the manuals' drily bureaucratic prescriptions for preordained act structure with a series of obligatory markers – the inciting incident and so on. Improvisation teaches you to pay attention to precisely the question Lehman says was repeatedly his here: What happens next? I wish someone had explained that to me – and given me Kieth Johnstone's 'Improvisation for Storytellers' years ago when I was starting to read screenwriting manuals.