My biggest irrational fear is being in the middle of an open field and in the distance seeing someone running towards me.

Cary Grant looks classy even while running, chased by an aeroplane

Hollywood's golden era of movie making is timeless, with a legacy of classics to take us back in time.

The scene where Thornhill escapes from the auction house (by using the crowd’s reaction to his antics) is very similar to a scene Hitchcock filmed 20 years earlier in The 39 Steps.

I definitely wouldn't call it his best, but North by Northwest may be my favorite Hitchcock film and videos like this help illustrate what makes it so great

"There's something menacing about open spaces." Just like the Overlook Hotel.

I recall some great filmmaker remarking that those interested in becoming a directors can save a lot of money by simply studying Hitchcock instead of spending it on film school, because therein is all they'll ever need to know about the craft. So true. What you show here is evidence of that. Liked and subscribed.

Thank you for this. Very informative. One tedious note: North by Northwest was shot in Vistavision (or "lazy eight"), which is technically still 35mm but has twice the image size. Tat increase in resolution made it an excellent format for landscapes, and wide, texture filled compositions (see the Monument Valley shots in The Searchers by john Ford). Hitchcock used this on several films and the higher resolution allowed him to use (among other things) the ultra wide shots (like the high angle of Cary Grant escaping from the UN Building) which might not have registered visually in standard 35 mm.

My favourite movie and you finally revealed the fate of the missing henchman ...he died in the crop Duster! Thank you.

One of my all-time faves ... thanks for giving me an excuse to watch it again - with more insight!

It's always a good day when Tyler drops a new video.

Hi Tyler. My understanding re: storyboarding the crop duster sequence. The scuttlebutt in the business is that Hitchcock always noodled little thumbnail storyboards (as do most directors) but that those (as in the case of most directors) are not considered "crew-worthy". I heard that Mentor Huebner was often brought-in to polish the thumbnails and produce a proper production board, often in the production office, and sat-in on the briefs. Where it gets interesting, and where the confusion may have arisen, is that Mentor Huebner was asked by Hitch and the studio to RE-DO some of the storyboarded sequences for promotion flyers when the movie was released, and those re-dos are most of what we see today of the boards from North by Northwest: They are distinguished by the fact that they are unusually detailed and painterly - with astounding likenesses of Grant. Specifically, he was asked to redraw several of the crop duster sequence storyboards and several of the "Vandamm house exterior" sequence at the end. This is why those storyboard panels are exquisite pieces of artwork (unlike many of the working boards from Mentor Huebner on the same film, which are always excellent by much less refined) drawn in charcoal, with shading, and representing near-perfect likenesses of Cary Grant. This level of artistry is rarely shown (and quite useless) on storyboards, even storyboards from Mentor Huebner at his then young age. The publication of those storyboards is thought by several storyboard artists to be the reason why storyboarding art suddenly became a trend, in Hollywood. Up to that time, they were not really as commonplace as they became in the '60s and '70s, and onward. Since you reference "Hitchcock's Notebooks" several working storyboards can be seen in the book that better reflect the "normal" level of work involved. Harold Michaelson also provides a good look at what a standard storyboard artist from the time was expected to produce as a level of work. Analyzing stoyboards is a very difficult thing to do for most people because some expert understanding of drawing is required to see what's what in each frame. The above information is mostly based on intense discussions among storyboard artists, including Michaelson, and including people who knew Huebner very well. Also based on notes from Huebner's widow who kept a website with Mentor's work for many years. As he got more experienced, Mentor Huebner clearly made it more and more of a habit to render all his "keyframes" in heavy, detailed charchoal, but continued to also produce rougher storyboard panels for the blow-by-blow details of the sequences he drew. Most people are unaware of the fact that storyboard artists use different techniques on a single storyboard to distinguish between day to day sequencing (done for expediency) and occasional key-frame art. At any rate, it's certain that Bill Krohn is dead wrong. Of course, a complex floor plan diagram was also used, and again, that's standard procedure on a complex sequence -- sometimes a floor plan is used to give the storyboard artist his instructions for the scene. One does not exclude the other at all... But his assumption that the floor plan sketch is incompatible with the existing storyboard is wrong. A scene like the crop duster sequence would NEVER have been filmed without a storyboard, and most likely several passes at a storyboard, probably including Hitch's own sketches at times, or and Huebner's -- in fact, storyboards are usually revised up to the last minute on set by whoever is standing there with a pen. The discussion about memos indicating what order script notes came in, and who wrote what are moot because all this stuff is a back and forth process (what Ridley Scott calls "an organic process") with endless tweaking and fiddling, and a memo will never account for all the work that's gone into conceiving, then writing, then storyboarding, then rewriting a scene and everything in between. A lot of the minutia of the process of storyboarding is often lost on people who retell the events. And thanks for making these extraordinary videos of yours - it's better than film school. Great job!

Great scene but this also recalls a favorite Crow T. Robot line: "This is so NOT Illinois!"

One of my favorite movies! Very interesting analysis and technique discussion. I was 11 at the time and didn't see the film until a few years later. Visited Mount Rushmore at that time on a family vacation to Colorado. I still remember walking from the broad flat parking lot into the cafeteria where the shooting scene took place. It makes watching the film all the more powerful having been there. Thanks

There is this scene in Arizona Dream from 1993 where the character played by Vincent Gallo reenacts the crop duster scene on the stage of a local talent show. He is totally serious about it but the performance gets to the audience as a joke, so the laughter majes him angry and sad.

I wish i could watch this movie again for the first time

This was a great and informative clip. I especially liked the part were you discussed the subjective/objective methods. You mention Seven as being influenced by the cropduster scene, but how about James Bond movies. North by Northwest clearly influenced those movies quite a bit.

I have only watched the first five seconds and am already excited, because any new video by Cinema Tyler is a much-anticipated event, and always good.

Hitch states his movies "drift into the extraordinary" which in my opinion causes or elicits a hypnotic effect for the audience, most particularly in Vertigo. Can you imagine the audience leaving the theater in a mild state of hypnosis, which essentially is a pleasurable state. Part of the mastery and mystique of Hitchcock.

Amazing...!! Love these studies and analysis...

thank you very much Cinema Tyler take care.

This channel keeps putting a smile on my face.

Fantastic and engaging work once again.

I refuse to understand why such a video like this would obtain dislikes..

That scene is so good and iconic that anytime there is a retrospective or history of Hollywood film making the part with Cary Grant taking a dive eating dirt as a biplane flies behind him is used.

I went to the Academy Museum in March 2022. They had the two story Mount Rushmore matte painting in a special exhibit. You could see it over 2 floors with exhibits including script notes, Saul Bass' titles design, and Hermann's music playing.

great work!

Awesome as always, Tyler! Any chance of you covering Strangers On A Train? You sometimes delve into the director/novelist relationship in these videos, and Hitchcock and Highsmith always interested me.

You do such a great job with the Full Metal Jacket, and the Apocalypse Now videos! I’d love to see this in the Hitchcock movies too!!

Awesome video!

Damn man, this was an incredible video. Awesome job.

Close Encounters towards the end there is the crop duster threatening the main characters climbing Devil's Tower.

Excellent video- as usual, Tyler. I have seen almost all of Hitchcock's post-early British films, some of the British ones (my favorite might be The Lady Vanishes. Hitchcock never duplicated that movie's unique charm) The only silent Hitchcock film I saw was The Lodger-absolutely terrific! But this post is about the original idea for the crop dusting scene. Hitchcock's British period film "The 39 Steps" was an early masterpiece Hitch continually mined for ideas, and nowhere was it more influential than North by Northwest. Even the auction-house scene is almost lifted from Robert Donat making the same kind of fuss in a theatre. But back to the cornfield; In the Novel The 39 Steps, there is a quite interesting passage I am sure you will find interesting: (The lead character Hannay is thinking) "Just then I heard a noise in the sky, and lo and behold there was that infernal aeroplane, flying low, about a dozen miles to the south and rapidly coming towards me. I had the sense to remember that on a bare moor I was left at the aeroplane's mercy, and that my only chance was to get to the leafy cover of the valley. Down I went like blue lightning, screwing my head round whenever I dared, to watch that damned flying machine...It was flying high, but as I looked it dropped several hundred feet and began to circle round...just as a hawk wheels before it pounces. Now it was flying very low...Suddenly it began to rise in swift whorls, and the next I knew it was speeding eastward again...My enemies has located me...There was not cover in the whole place to hide a rat...It seemed to suffocate me. The free moor-lands we're prison walls, and the keen hill-air was the breathe of a dungeon" -The 39 Steps (novel). Thanks, Tyler

Great video! I love this. I saw this film the first time in 1980. To this day when I see a crop dusting plane from my workplace windows, I think of this scene! LOL, each time, I am just a little bit unnerved...

This sequence is a dry run for the shower scene in Psycho.

This is one of the best and least pretentious examination of Hitchcock. Excellent job!!!

One of my favorite films. This scene was shot near my home town of Bakersfield, CA, 110 miles north of LA. By the way, do you know why the opening title backgrounds (including Leo the Lion) were Green? Thanks! Great Stuff!

this sequence is so famous and influenced many movies in the future, my favorite is one of spongebob squarepants' episodes where he waiting and waiting a bus that never came in a very quite sea bottom and such threatening one-eyed creature keep terrorizing him, haha

Hi, Tyler. Great job. You should be teaching. I always feel smarter after watching one of your videos. As to the issue of open spaces, I always feel more alienated in the country than when in the city. You can test this by staying at home and talking to no one on the phone until you get lonely. Eventually you can get what is called cabin fever. Like you, I live in a city (Chicago), and being in a crowd is reassuring. In contrast, a rural setting can make you feel alienated and vulnerable, like Cary Grant. Clearly the crop duster is a manifestation of that feeling of alienation.

The storyboard drawings look more like Greg Peck than Cary Grant. Funny

Wow! Great video! I subscribed!

Ah, I've been wondering for years if the plane was in the shot of Grant running from it. I see they shot it with two cameras as they probably only wanted to do it once with the star in it. Hitchcock said he was the most scared filming the man under the carousel in 'Strangers on a Train', so he had a real concern for the safety of all, let alone a major star. Great info in your video.

Outstanding. Nuf' said.

One of the best videos i've ever seen ! Maybe you could do something about Hitchcock's "Psycho" ?

I used to play Toy Story 2 video game and their is a boss fight with crop duster toy in empty yard, so I thought this is original idea from the game developer but later I found many shows, films, cartoons and video games are using the same idea. Then I started thinking that this idea is surely referenced to something from famous event or movie. Then later after years I watched North by Northwest and I found the original scene at last and the thing is I know Alfred Hitchcock before but I didn't hear about North by Northwest and didn't have a thought that Alfred is the one behind this idea.

It is the best scene i ever watched in my life really ! Hitchcock really knew how to draw viewers attention. He was such a genius 🥲😎

That scene was filmed right down the street from my house in Wasco Ca.

I wish I could stand at a bus stop as elegantly as Cary Grant does. I also wish I could run like him whilst dressed for an important meeting. Top notch.

Two similar scenes come to mind: "From Russia with Love" Bond vs. strafing helicopter, and "Night Moves" strafing floatplane over open ocean. Someone else mentioned there were a few such scenes in "Breaking Bad." My favorite is the one where Walter tells Declan, "Say my name."

Well done, C Tyler. When will you make a 'long series' on Hitchcock, chronologically, say starting with Sabotage, and do not forget, a deeper analysis of North by NW!:-)))

Breaking Bad enjoyed visiting this meme on many occasions: empty prairie, men in suits.

That's odd. 7:42 shows Hitchcock looking through the viewfinder. But the told Francois Truffaut and Peter Bogdanovich that he never looked through the viewfinder!

For me the first time I saw the cropdusting sequence was probably through homage in Indiana Jones The Last Crusade, one of my fav movies, and I never realised that it was an homage till today when I watched North by Northwest

Thank you for this very much; I thoroughly enjoyed it. The supposed storyboards were definitely done after filming for the purpose of publicity, as you point out Bill Krohn says in his book Hitchcock at Work (which is first rate, by the way). I say this only partly because Krohn is extremely trustworthy; beyond that, the drawings match the finished film far too accurately to have preceded it, much, much more accurately than any actual storyboards I’ve ever seen. Thanks again.

Amazing!!!!

There are several Hitchcock films I only vaguely remember ever seeing once........and some of those were way back in the 1960s. I'd like to check them out again. 'The Man Who Knew Too Much'......might be one. Did that star Jimmy Stewart? Something I probably saw at the local drive-in, from the back of the family station wagon.....and at that age, I'm sure I wasn't really paying too much attention. Always really liked the opening titles & musical score for 'North By Northwest' though.

This was always one of my most favorite Hitchcock movies. the only scene which I found annoying was the crop duster crashing into the tanker as it made no sense to me. Sure, the probability for a crash is not zero but it was an widely open space, no bad weather and no attack of any kind at the plane not hearing any engine trouble. As this documentary showed, Hitchcock had a variety of impulsive silly ideas which luckily got all dropped, resp. someone talked him out of them. But they could have truly come up with a tiny better idea for the plane crash to make at least remotely sense. This one scene was the only one in the movie where Hitchcock asked too much for the suspension of disbelief. Besides that a wonderful, enjoyable movie and showing Grants great comedian talent which I also appreciated a lot in Operation Petticoat, Houseboat and Father Goose.

As a general rule, when Hitch is having fun, I am having fun. N by NW, Strangers on a Train, Psycho etc. for example.

CinemaTyler, what is the music you have playing with your voice over? I like it

Hey Tyler! Do you have a high quality jpg of that continuity photo of Grant at the cornfield? There's a huge online debate/discussion about his exact suit and tie--and this looks like it would be one of the best photos to solve some of our questions. I searched Google and can't find this photo.

Roger Thornhill must be thinking "Oh oh I better get the heck outta here!" That's why he is running. He is trying to run away from the plane. At first I thought he was running to catch the bus and talk to that guy some more. But that's probably wrong now that I think about it.

I'm convinced Cary Grant would've been the greatest 007 of all time

amazing

Just signed up for Mubi under your referral link. Cheers!

When on filmschool in the eighties, I analized this scene on the aspect time of daylight and it gives proof of the possibility to shoot discontinuous during a sunny day with shadows in a random order. The only way to observe this is to locate the shadows in each shot. The conclusion: it doesn't matter where the sun is (it's your only key light source). The viewers brain is not catching the changes of direction which could be sometimes 6 hours (90 degrees). This was a great lesson, which nowadays pops up when confronted with a governmental artist impression of a city reconstruction, where the with a computer created artist impression of a street with a park is lighted with the sun (key light) positioned in the north (from the back of the viewpoint), which is in the real world completely impossible. Nobody will mention, until you tell them the fake news. Another revelation was the reading of the script. It popped up on internet some decade ago. The script was exactly what the movie shows. I wondered then, who was the genius, the scriptwriter or Herr Hitchcock the director?

Can you do one on the hurt locker please

MUBI is free if you study film or some related field by the way. I'm a media studies student and I got it.

Please do more Hitchcock vidios!

3:11 Mintor (pause) Huebner

Hitchcock is the father of the modern visual storytelling

12:25 Shows that explicitly paid homage to that scene also include "Roadies". I'd say implicitly might include "Casino", as Rothstein is standing out in the Nevada desert all by himself dressed in a business suit telling the audience that he has has a 50-50 chance of getting murdered. He survives, but then Pesci's character later gets murdered in a corn field. Wow.

Very good .Congratulations for the job.Lots of polemics here about the improbability to kill a man from a plane ....But thats not the question here!We know its not serious.Its just a adventure movie.But a car with killers coming into this countryside would be so common.The most important in that scene is" How to film it to create a mood and emotions in peoples mind" ..And thats what you explain here!The only thing i would know about this scene is the name of Cary Grant stand-in!

James Bond also made references to the crop duster scene. The Helicopter chase in From Russia With Love being the most obvious reference to spot, but also Licence To Kill, where Bond is in an open space during the climactic tankertruck-chase and at some point Pam Bouvier comes flying in a crop duster and throws dust onto the men chasing Bond.

From Russia with Love did a similar chase

MUBI gave us PTA's _Junun_ !

questions I have about this scene: 1. Has anyone in the history of the world ever been killed or even injured by an airplane or helicopter hitting them while they or on the ground, while walking or in a vehicle? 2. How would the pilot think they could do it without putting themselves in great danger? 3. Why doesn't anyone ever mention the machine gun bullets that hit the ground next to Thornhill *after* the plane goes by on the second and third passes? Finally, why in the holy f- doesn't the plane pull up and avoid hitting the tanker truck??!?

Filmed near pond rd. outside delano, ca

The "more menacing-looking car" was Hitchcock's own car, which also shows up in Psycho. The crop duster dusting the corn field where Cary Grant is hiding would have sicken and kill his character pretty quickly since there was arsenic and sodium cyanide as pesticides back then. 11:56 When my sister was 17, she dated a crop duster pilot who, at only 19, had crashed his plane on the job and survived, unfortunately, with head trauma and was never quite right after that. Sad to lose some of your cognitive abilities so young.

A beautiful study -- thanks and kudos!. Will put my spoilsport comments in a different language. Eszena hau zinez ezagunena eta kognozentziarra inoiz gurtu den sillestenetakoa da. Nerabeetan lehenengoa ikusteak oso ondo ikusi zuen, baina ez du zentzurik bere onera iristean. Zergatik hegazkin bat? Zergatik galtzen du pilotuaren suak Thornton nahita eta zergatik kamikazea amaitzen da? Zergatik da hegazkina uzten duen laborantza? Pilotoaren jokaerak ez du zentzurik nik esan dezaketenik.

i don't recall this scene 0:10 from Yojimbo neither Sanjuro where's it from?

The continuity fail between the two bus shots has always intrigued me. How did that slip by?

did 007 completely blow this scene out of proportion with Russia With Love's helicopter scene? or is this a "nothing beats the original" thing?

Hitchcock directed The 39 Steps (20 years before?) in 1935 - I haven't watched it yet but from the theatre story I'm quite sure there is a plane attack scene which is almost the same. Actually, the whole story seems very similar... can anyone confirm? btw, nice video!

In "Prime Cut" (1972) Sissy Spacek and Lee Marvin are chased by a harvesting machine instead of a crop-dusting plane.

That scene from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 where nebula chases down Gamora was inspired by this scene.

flippin' off the censorship of you tubes with great finess like Hitchcock. bigups

13:03 can anyone tell me what movie is this shot from?

All that analysis without mentioning agoraphobia. That was the essence.

I know people get tired of hearing this, but the art of movie making was at its pinnacle during this time. This movie, To catch a Thief, Ben Hur, Ten Commandments, Lawrence of Arabia, The Seachers. Very few modern day movies measure up.

Yes, definitely Hitchcock's best film, if only for this scene and the dinner aboard the "20th Century Limited". Hitchcock hated working off a controlled sound stage, which unfortunately, gave us several rather poorly set outdoor scenes. One of my two most highly regarded films.

02:30 It's the fucking dad from I Was a Teenage Werewolf!!!!

Oh, so THAT's why the plane crashed. I've flown enough small planes myself to know that they don't just go crashing into trucks whenever convenient.

David lynch vedeo plese

There is NOTHING wrong with the model. I’ve seen NBNW projected on a large screen twice. I also Associate Produced a Laserdisc of the film for Criterion in the early 90’s. Many seasoned filmgoers I know never knew it was a model.

"That plane's dusting crops where there ain't no crops." I get that this works to make us suspicious of the plane's intent, but why indeed was it releasing dust there? Was that a test run before using it on Thornhill?

Its his best. For once had had a really good cast in Grant, Eva Marie Saint and Mason. Unlike the mess of a cast in The Birds. And he also had a really good script. That was made to order for him. And he directed it quite well. Wonderful ending.

There’s a point before the crop duster where Cary Grant gets blown by a dirty gust due to a high speed lorry passing. The back of his hair briefly lifts, the front of his hair not at all! That would never happen with me, my hair would be thrown into complete disarray ! I’ve always thought Cary Grant had the most immaculate and ideal hairline. ( not like mine ). And NOTHING could disturb it !

Those crop dusters had it in for King Kong too. Always had misgivings about biplanes. I mean, if a plane will fly with only one wing, the other wing can only be a sign of evil.

Using the crop duster as a platform to dispose of Roger Thornhill doesn't make much sense (it's some time before they fire a shot at him, so what exactly is 'buzzing' him about?), but it is very memorable.

As a native Hoosier, I can confirm that this is an authentic representation of Indiana (even if it was sh0t in California). Only we don't think of it as miles of "nothing." More like miles worth of valuable resources (even if yer not a farmer). Support yer local farmer's market! Hufflepuff Hodunk Hoosier Hobbits, represent! 2:30 Authentic. Indiana gets hot in the summer and can stay hot if it goes into Indian summer (and it's not a dry heat). Most of us wouldn't be caught dead wearing a suit and tie, especially not during the hot months, so that part's not exactly authentic. Maybe that particular Hoosier was on his way to a business meeting that required him to wear a suit. It's not specified, so it's left to the audience's imagination. Barring that, though, we typically dress appropriately for the weather. Anyway, we Hoosiers are pretty chill, and that's authentically represented. 5:08 It still looks authentic. Btw, you pronounced "Indiana" the way a native Hoosier would, especially someone from the northerly rural areas (like me). 12:53 Never realized before just how much that scene looks like the Mojave Wasteland. Now I'm hearing the voice of Mr. New Vegas in my head.