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Virtually Existing

Quotes

Roger Thornhill: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.

Eve Kendall: What makes you think you have to conceal it?

Roger Thornhill: She might find the idea objectionable.

Eve Kendall: Then again, she might not.

See more...

Mistakes

In New York, a newspaper headline reads, MANHUNT ON FOR UN KILLER, with a smaller headline below reading "Nixon promises West will remain in Berlin". The next night Eva Marie Saint reads the crop-duster plane story in the Chicago Sun-Times. Since the Sun-Times was a morning paper and the accident occurred in the afternoon, she must have been reading the following morning's edition. But a smaller headline underneath carries the same story: "Nixon promises West will remain in Berlin"; two days later, it's old news. See more...

Trivia

In the scene when Cary Grant is going up the steps to the UN, Alfred Hitchcock shot it from a rug truck across the street. He wasn't allowed to shoot the front of the UN. If you look closly, you can see a security guard in the left corner. See more...

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North by Northwest (1959) - 12 corrections

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau (add more)

Genres: Action, Adventure, Mystery, Thriller

Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click "edit" under an entry, then choose "correct entry". You can also submit corrections for corrections, if you think a mistake has been unfairly removed.

Mistakes
Trivia
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Quotes
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Questions
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In the hospital room, Thornhill puts on the clothes the Professor brought him while they talk. In one shot, Thornhill is putting on the shirt. Then the camera moves briefly to the Professor. When it returns to Thornhill, he has almost finished fastening the trousers, although too little time has elapsed for him to have picked them up from the bed and put them on. Seconds later, when he climbs out the window and walks along the ledge, he is also wearing shoes, which he could not have put on and tied that fast. [Cary Grant puts on his shoes (loafers) after the professor leaves the room. Therefore, he was correctly wearing shoes when he climbs out the window.]
Edit
Cary says "Assembling the General Assembly" instead of "Addressing the General Assembly". I believe it's when he's with his mom, exploring Kaplans Hotel. [He says it as a joke. Like "Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department".]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
"Logic is boring", said Hitchcock. Some things you still can't ignore, like the scene where Roger Thornhill is kidnapped in the very beginning of this film. What about those people Thornhill's having lunch with? Wouldn't they had wondered where their reliable business-associate disappears all of a sudden and later come forward and give some credit to his story on their part? [All they know is that he left the table and didn't return. How could they possibly add credibility to his story?]
Edit Corrected by jhoffman100@yahoo.com
In the English DVD subtitles throughout the film, anytime something is shown for the audience to read (the package in Townsend's home, Eve's note on the train) the text of the note is duplicated in the subtitles. This is extremely odd because subtitles are intended for those hard of hearing; nothing interferes with their ability to read. If they did have trouble reading, printing it twice on the screen for the same duration wouldn't help much. [It's not odd at all. A hearing-impaired viewer must constantly shift their focus from watching the action on the screen to reading the subtitles below. This does not give them much time to read anything else onscreen. Including it in the subtitles just makes it a little easier for those viewers to keep up with what's going on in the movie.]
Edit
When Cary Grant writes in the matchbook to warn Eva, the actor is writing with his right hand. Cary Grant was left handed. [Just because the actor is left-handed, doesn't mean the character is. It's only a mistake if we see him writing with his left-hand elsewhere in the movie.]
Edit
It's now infamous that the scene of Thornhill ascending the steps to the United Nations building was done surreptitiously, without permission of the U.N. Watch as Cary Grant walks up the steps. As he does, one innocent passerby to screen left appears to recognise Grant. [In the context of the film, why can it not be someone who recognises Thornhill?]
Edit
The train is stopped to be boarded, but when the police are questioning Eva Marie Saint the window behind her is showing scenery rushing past, and there is a slight wobble in the camera to simulate train movement. [The train wouldn't be held on a siding, but would pick up the state police and then start again.]
Edit Corrected by scwilliam
County detectives in Glen Cove, Long Island, question a woman who impersonates the wife of a UN diplomat. Wouldn't they already have enough of a dossier on a man of his position to know that his wife had died several years ago? [No, county detectives (esp. in the 50's) would not have a dossier of personal information on a diplomat anywhere handy.]
Edit Corrected by Myridon
The characters were supposed to be moving "North by Northwest." But there is no such direction (or compass point). There is North by West and Northwest by North, but North by Northwest doesn't exist. The title of the film is a factual error. [Roger Thornhill, Grant's character, flies north via Northwest Airlines.]
Edit
Eva Marie Saint gives instructions to Cary Grant to take a bus to a rendezvous on an Indiana highway. He points out that he could rent a car. She says, "Mr. Kaplan said bus: he wants to make sure you are alone." How does this choice of transportation create any greater assurance that he will be alone? [If he rented a car he would have control over the vehicle and could hide someone in the backseat or trunk with little difficulty. If he's taking the bus, a mole might be placed on the bus to reassure the fictitious Kaplan that Thornhill was riding alone.]
Edit Corrected by Phoenix
At the end the couple are supposed to be returning from Rapid City, SD, to New York by train. The last shot shows a locomotive of the Southern (now Norfolk and Southern) Railway. This would have been possible only if they returned via New Orleans. [The train in the final scene is Southern Pacific, not Southern. The "Pacific" the two locomotives have been covered over (but not on the baggage and four passenger cars visible before fade-to-black). The consist is a mix of SP paint schemes, all of which identify the railroad regarless of names on the side. It would have been easy for them to obtain SP train equipment in LA, but it seems odd that they would have bothered to modify the railroad name on the locomotives, particulary to a real road that didn't serve the northern US either.]
Edit
When Thornhill and Kendal are having dinner on the train, at one point Kendal says 'I never discuss salmon on an empty stomach'. Watch her lips and you'll see that Evas Marie-Saint is actually saying 'I never make love on an empty stomach'. The scene was clearly redubbed. [The entry is wrong: Kendal actually says "I never discuss love on an empty stomach".]
Edit