Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann. Two great tastes that taste great together. Along with Prokofiev and Eisenstein and Steven Spielberg and John Williams, H&H constitute one of the most successful composer/director collaborations in film history.
And nowhere is that collaboration more enjoyable than in the 1959 thrill ride NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Ernest Lehman’s clever, convoluted script of mistaken identity and murder stars Cary Grant at his most debonnaire. Eva Marie Saint plays the lovely spy and James Mason oozes suave evil.
Herrmann composed and orchestrated in the entire score for NORTH BY NORTHWEST in 51 days. His typical practice of writing a score starting at the beginning of the film and working through to the end serves him in good stead. The score is one wild ride from the opening Spanish rhythms through the nail-biting Mount Rushmore finale. Herrmann was inspired by Grant’s “Astaire-like agility” to use the Spanish dance called the fandango for the score’s main theme.
A pale green covers the screen and underneath Leo the Lion’s trademark roar, we hear the fandango’s faint, insistent rhythm begin in the timpani and low strings. As the fandango takes over, blue lines criss-cross and intersect the green screen, dissecting and chasing after one another until the graphics fade into the reflective side of a building. The cue is one frenetic chase to the end of the main titles and one of Hitchcock’s cleverest cameos.
Every fan has their favorite Herrmann score and Hitchcock film and, for me, NORTH BY NORTHWEST fits the bill on both counts. Hitchcock and Herrmann. The alliterative effect pleases me. The collaborative effect even more so.
