North by Northwest Echoes in Bond

Roger Thornhill getting cropdusted and Bond getting buzzed by a SPECTRE whirlybird is the obvious and well-noted one. However, I spotted two more last night.

First, as Van Damme's heavies enter the room to innebriate Thornhill, one of them is smoking a cig with the square resting daintily in his fingertips. It's a bizarre affectation, and Savalas' Blofeld does it in OHMSS. Impossible to be coincidental.

Second, Eve Kendall's staged fake murder of Thornhill is reprised in TLD when Bond and Pushkin fake the latter's assasination. In both instances, there is even fake blood, and in both cases one of the baddies--Leonard in NbN and Necros in TLD--kibbutz on the supposed corpse to make sure it really is a corpse. Very, very similar scenes. Probably too similar for the resemblance to be coincidental.

No idea if it was directly inspired or not, but Cary Grant's famous light grey suit and tie combo is similar to what Bond wore in the Skyfall PTS. It's a somewhat unorthodox combo (i.e. suit and tie being the same shade of grey).

That was the helluva suit Grant wore. I'll pay close attention to SF's PTS next time 'round.

Incidentally, I've read that some people consider NbNW to be the first James Bond film.

Few actors have the archetypal 'Bond look' - Grant was certainly one of them.

Wasn't he considered for Dr No, but ultimately ruled out because he was then around the age that Moore was when he quit Bond?

Blunt Instrument wrote:

Wasn't he considered for Dr No, but ultimately ruled out because he was then around the age that Moore was when he quit Bond?

The story is, they still wanted him, but he would only do one film.

An interesting what-if.

Grant was older than Fleming, let alone the ballpark age Bond was meant to be. Still, with enough boot polish on the noggin' he could've still given it a good go.

CJB wrote:

An interesting what-if.

Grant was older than Fleming, let alone the ballpark age Bond was meant to be. Still, with enough boot polish on the noggin' he could've still given it a good go.

Grant would have been great as Bond, I am sure. He feels a bit closer to the Fleming creation personality-wise than Connery.

But I'm not sure Grant had the necessary hard edge Connery possessed.

The greatest cassing misses, however, were not tabbing Lee Van Cleef for Leiter and Theodore Marcuse for Blofeld.

Perilagu Khan wrote:

Lee Van Cleef for Leiter

Interesting choice. Could've worked, but I find it hard to picture him as anything other than a villain.

He played Colonel Douglas Mortimer--basically a good guy--in For a Few Dollars More.

If you read Fleming's descriptions of Leiter, they tally with Van Cleef's appearance uncannily. And, of course, he was the helluva actor.

Been many years since I watched For A Few Dollars More. I instinctively think of him as 'The Bad' chap in the Leone spag-westerns.

He definitely had a ruthless edge that basically no Leiter actor really had (unless you classify John Terry's acting chops as a lethal weapon).

That's right. And Fleming's Leiter was a pretty tough sumbitch, too, so it gibes.

Would've been quite the turn if Van Cleef's Leiter in this parallel universe ended up a Pinkerton, as per the novels, given they were the arch-enemies of outlaws in the Old West.

Irony! Thy name is Van Cleef!

CJB wrote:

Been many years since I watched For A Few Dollars More. I instinctively think of him as 'The Bad' chap in the Leone spag-westerns.

He plays two different characters in the films he is in. One good, one bad.

CJB wrote:

Been many years since I watched For A Few Dollars More. I instinctively think of him as 'The Bad' chap in the Leone spag-westerns.

He plays two different characters in the films he is in. One good, one bad.