North by Northwest – CARY COMES HOME FESTIVAL

North by Northwest (1959), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Watershed, 1 Canon’s Rd, Bristol BS1 5TX, 0117 927 5100

Thu 10 – Sun 13 Sept
Tickets: £18/£13 Concessions, plus £1.50 transaction fee

THIS EVENT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED

Rating: PG
Running Time: 136 mins

The master of suspense British emigre Alfred Hitchcock is at his most playful and entertaining in this gloriously colourful cascade of thrills, spills and mistaken identity. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), an innocent man, is mistaken for a wanted fugitive and pursued across North America by a foreign spies trying to kill him, as well as the police who suspect of him of murder. The epic chase leads him deeper into the world of espionage and into the arms of the glamorous Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint).

Hitchcock always had a store of visual ideas – a chase across the Presidential heads of Mount Rushmore here, a scene where the hero is stranded in the middle of nowhere, there. It took a partnership with scriptwriter Ernest Lehman to join the plot dots to craft the cinematic ride that became North by Northwest.

Grant is on charming suave form rising to the playfulness of Hitch’s vision as the wrong man befuddled and bemused by the circumstances he find himself in – his double takes match the best of any comedy actor. However it is the whole Hitchcock package from Saul Bass’s striking opening graphics and Bernard Herrmann’s driving score to murder in the UN building and that last perilous chase over Mount Rushmore all shot in the high resolution colour of VistaVision that make North by Northwest an enjoyably thrilling cinematic experience.

Pricing: Screenings after 16:00: £11.00 full / £8.50 concessions; screenings before 16:00: £8.50 full / £5.00 concessions; aged 24 or under? You can see any screening at any time for £5.00; Refugees and asylum seekers can see any screening for £5.00.

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GREETING CARY GRANT
A VIRTUAL TOUR CELEBRATING THE CENTENARY OF CARY GRANT ARRIVING IN NEW YORK WITH FESTIVAL DIRECTOR CHARLOTTE CROFTS

SOME VERSIONS OF CARY GRANT
AN ILLUSTRATED TALK ANALYSING THE VARIETY OF CARY GRANT’S PERFORMANCE STYLES, WITH JAMES NAREMORE

THE JOURNEYS OF CARY GRANT: AN AUDIO VISUAL CELEBRATION

COMMEMORATING THE CENTENARY OF ARCHIE’S FIRST VOYAGE TO AMERICA AND INTERNATIONAL STARDOM, WE’RE SEEKING VIDEO ESSAYS EXPLORING HIS JOURNEYS OF MANY TYPES

This screening is part of Watershed’s ‘Films That Love the Cinema’ strand for their reopening after the Coronavirus shutdown. Read this message from Cinema Curator Mark Cosgrove, listen to Mark’s Sept Podcast and find out more about how to support the cinema through these difficult times.