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Roger Thornhill...er, Cary Grant...In "Houseboat" (1958)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
8 replies | jump to latest

I've seen North by Northwest(NXNW) at least once a year for a few decades now. Its one of those movies I know by heart - - the scenes, the shots, the lines(though I can't remember them verbatim; there's some long speeches) and , it turns out, practically every facial move and physical gesture Cary Grant was capable of in 1959.

But in all those decades, I never saw the Cary Grant movie made right BEFORE NXNW, until this week.

Its called "Houseboat" -- a 1958 movie that came out in November, far less than a year before NXNW in July of 1959.

Consequently, Cary Grant in Houseboat rather looks and sounds, and MOVES exactly like Roger O. Thornhill in NXNW.

In fact, Houseboat begins with Grant driving up to and entering a country mansion that looks much like the Glen Cove mansion in NXNW, and then he enters the house. ...and...

...the first thing we notice is that he is wearing a nicely tailored silver-gray suit that is (almost) a dead ringer for the famous suit that Cary wears all through NXNW(called "the greatest suit in movies" by one critic; Cary wore out about six of them in the film.)

Consequently, the first scene of Houseboat is a real lollapalooza for the NXNW fan: it looks like some sort of "long lost missing scene" FROM NXNW. Cary in the same suit, with the same build, and the same facial expressions, hanging forward and down in rather the same way he does in NXNW, saying his lines exactly the same way. And in a house rather like the Glen Cove mansion in NXNW.

Its uncanny, I tell you.

But then things get odd. There are three young childen -- boy, girl, boy in the scene. And they are rather sad little monsters. Their mother -- Grant's estranged wife -- has died in an auto accident, and they barely know their globe-trotting dad(who looks and sounds just like Roger Thornhill.) They don't like him.

Twice-divorced Ladies Man Supreme Roger Thornhill just doesn't look at home with three kids -- "Houseboat" is definitely family entertainment. And rather than a cool Nordic blonde like Eva Marie Saint as his romantic foil, Cary gets saucy and statuesque Italian Sophia Loren in this one. (She would be considered for the female lead in NXNW, but Hitch wasn't interested. GRANT was.)

I read somewhere that once he hired Eva Marie Saint, Hitchcock saw her in some Bob Hope movie wearing colors he wanted reserved for NXNW. So he forbade her to wear those colors in any films after the Hope film and before NXNW.

I wonder if something similar happened with Grant in Houseboat and Hitch. Grant wears Roger's silver suit(which one OTHER critic called " a coat of armor") only in that first scene (in the "Psuedo Glen Cove mansion" and then spends most of the movie in very bright WHITES -- a white sportcoat, a white suit, even pure white PAJAMAS. The film is set in a sultry summer in and around humid Washington DC -- perhaps white was the proper attire. Later in the film, Grant suits up ala NXNW --- but THAT suit is a bit more...brown? And eventually he dons a nice black tuxedo.

But he sure wears a lot of white.

Once the opening "Roger Thornhill Returns" scene is over at the beginning of Houseboat, Cary Grant never really wears Roger Thornhill's clothes again in the film. But he certain wears Roger's FACE, and Roger's VOICE, and Roger's BUILD(a bit more thin than the muscular fellow in 1955's To Catch a Thief)...and one comes to realize: a big star like Cary Grant simply didn't have much "range" -- audiences paid to see that man, to hear that voice, to study those moves(like a deep resigned inhale, exhale, and shoulder slump to suggest distress.)

Alfred Hitchcock understood this. He noted that folks would often say about a movie, "So, Jimmy Stewart does this, and then Jimmy does that..." always "Jimmy Stewart," not the character. Hitch chafed at Paul Newman's demands for characterization in Torn Curtain because, said Hitch to a colleague, "he's just going to be playing Paul Newman."

And Hitchcock bought "the Cary Grant package" for NXNW --most recently on display in Houseboat -- and got it.

Funny thing, though. Whereas in North by Northwest, it seems like somebody -- usually Grant, but others, too -- keep saying "Roger Thornhill" all through the movie. We come to KNOW that name(and how different it is from "George Kaplan.") Roger Thornhill, Roger Thornill...Roger O Thornhill..Roger Thornhill.

Whereas in Houseboat, I never caught Grant's character's name. Turns out it is "Tom Winston," rather a family comedy name, when you think about it.

Surprise: "Houseboat" got an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay...just like NXNW did the next year. Neither won. (NXNW lost to Pillow Talk!) But the Houseboat screenplay is a much more simple and silly construction than the intricate and spectacular NXNW script. It just doesn't seem fair to equate the two.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

One of the reasons that Cary Grant retired "young" at 62, other than aging appearance(!) was that he was bored by being in the same type of movie over and over again: always meeting the girl, spending the whole movie working on getting the girl...and then getting the girl. "I've done that," he said, "it was fun, but I'm through."

Grant gets the girl in Houseboat. Grant gets the girl in NXNW. One watches Houseboat mechanically lurch to that ending and NXNW -- where the deal is sealed on Mount Rushmore -- comes out WAY ahead.

But then, Grant got the girl through tears in "An Affair to Remember." And Grant got the girl AND her mother in To Catch A Thief....and Grant got the girl in Charade and in Father Goose.

Grant did NOT get the girl in his final film, "Walk Don't Run." He already HAD the girl. He was an older married man who matchmaked a younger couple...and headed back home to London with plans to impregnate his wife.

But for most of the rest of the time..Cary got the girl. (Which was more than you could say for James Stewart in Vertigo...or in Anatomy of a Murder, for that part.)

Its "nice" how Cary gets the girl in Houseboat. Its SPECTACULAR how Cary gets the girl in North by Northwest.

[–] greenbudgie (2355) 4 years ago

I haven't seen 'Houseboat' but I did suspect that Hitchcock saw the previous movies of the actors he was using. Or had his spies out at any rate.

Just recently I noticed that there were similarities in two movies the British actor Richard Todd appeared in back to back in 1949/1950. In both cases Richard Todd plays a similar guilt-ridden lying character in an intriguing situation and has the same haunted look.

'The Interrupted Journey' (1949) is very Hitchcockian which Hitchcock himself must have been made aware of. So did Hitchcock pack his bags to Britain to get the English atmosphere and it's main male actor of Richard Todd's previous movie? His 'Stage Fright' (1950) would seem to suggest this. In both movies there is a love triangle (Richard Todd involved with a blonde and a brunette) and a cheat in the plot. Also the blonde Christine Norden plays her character in 'Journey' in a sexy way reminiscent of Marlene Dietrich in 'Stage Fright.'

It might pay to watch these two movies back to back sometime if given the chance. And I'll give 'Houseboat' a try with NXNW which I'll need no excuse to do.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I haven't seen 'Houseboat' but I did suspect that Hitchcock saw the previous movies of the actors he was using.

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I have read that Hitchcock -- unlike other directors especially when they got older or "set in their ways" -- watched pretty much ALL movies, in his private screening room at his studio bungalow.

Hitch was looking for actors -- and also for what was current "at the movies." He determined that b/w horror movies were doing well(he watched Diabolique and House on Haunted Hill) and that helped him decide to make Psycho. He noticed The Twilight Zone and the helped him decide to make "The Birds"(Hitchcock also watched a lot of TV.) He noticed the nuclear cold war films like The Manchurian Candidate and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and that helped him decide to make Torn Curtain.

As for actors, two he found on TV: Vera Miles in some TV episode; Tippi Hedren in a TV COMMERCIAL.

Back to the movies, Hitchcock saw Anthony Perkins in "Fear Strikes Out" (1957) and decided he wanted to use him in SOMETHING. What a shock for everyone(including Perkins) that that something turned out to be Psycho.

Similarly, Hitchcock saw Michael Caine in Alfie and The Ipcress File and filed him away as a possible Cary Grant replacement when Grant retired. But Hitch eventually offered Caine a psycho killer like Perkins played -- and worse: a rapist, too. (Frenzy.) Caine declined.

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Or had his spies out at any rate.

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Yes. Hitch was among a number of producers at Paramount who got reports from talent scouts who went to watch Broadway shows in search of new talent. One of those agents spotted Shirley MacLaine as an UNDERSTUDY replacing the star (Carol Haney) one night, in "The Pajama Game." The agent reported back both to Hitchcock and to Hal Wallis on her. She ended up in a Hitchcock film first(The Trouble With Harry) and then a Wallis film(Artists and Models with Martin and Lewis.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Just recently I noticed that there were similarities in two movies the British actor Richard Todd appeared in back to back in 1949/1950. In both cases Richard Todd plays a similar guilt-ridden lying character in an intriguing situation and has the same haunted look.

.....

It might pay to watch these two movies back to back sometime if given the chance. And I'll give 'Houseboat' a try with NXNW which I'll need no excuse to do.

--

I've been hearing(reading) more and more about Stage Fright recently on these boards and I think it compels a re-visit -- now with a "back to back" element that should prove educational.

Thank you!

[–] greenbudgie (2355) 4 years ago

Hitchcock certainly kept his finger on the pulse of movie trends. He did so much planning and he was able to move quickly to keep up with what the audiences wanted.

I've watched the trailer for 'Houseboat' and studied the stills of the movie. To get a flavor of Cary Grant's character in that.

I didn't realize until now that Cary Grant had a drink problem during the 1950s and sought help. This might have contributed to Thornhill's self-deprecatory digs at his own heavy drinking:-

"I have several bartenders who depend on me."
Sings "I've grown accustomed to my bourbon."
When told that the other men had a head start on the drinking he replies "That won't last long."

I notice that Eva Marie Saint wears a ginger-colored dress on Mount Rushmore. She's wearing something similar while kissing Bob Hope in 'That Certain Feeling' (1956). Perhaps that's the coloring Hitchcock visualized for her in a major scene he wanted her in.

People do have a dig at the one green costume Tippi Hedren wears throughout 'The Birds.' Hitchcock used the wolf-whistle piece from the advert he had seen of her. This proves that he did borrow from his leading star's latest screen performances.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Hitchcock certainly kept his finger on the pulse of movie trends. He did so much planning and he was able to move quickly to keep up with what the audiences wanted.

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Yes. In his last two decades, he was rather famous for being able to STOP projects he started if he didn't like where the pre-production was going. A film with Audrey Hepburn and Laurence Harvey to be called "No Bail for the Judge" was junked and replaced with Psycho, for instance. And he made Torn Curtain instead of a movie slated for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastrianni about Italian thieves in a NYC hotel.

Sadly, Hitchcock also has projects TAKEN AWAY from him , never made. "Mary Rose" (for which Hitchcock wanted in the ads, "Mary Rose, A Ghost Story By Alfred Hitchcock" and the first version of Frenzy, an NYC set tale about an "American urban psycho."

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I've watched the trailer for 'Houseboat' and studied the stills of the movie. To get a flavor of Cary Grant's character in that.

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He's sort of like "Roger O. Thornhill with more gravitas." He has kids. His ex-wife has died. He's a DC diplomat.

And he wears more white than in NXNW.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I didn't realize until now that Cary Grant had a drink problem during the 1950s and sought help.

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I tell ya, I've never read that, but it makes sense. Any number of famous movie stars of that era had PUBLIC drinking problems(Spencer Tracy, John Barrymore, Errol Flynn, maybe Tyrone Power?) But I never heard that about GRant. I DID read that Grant took LSD in a very "clinical" way around the time he made North by Northwest(and maybe Houseboat?)

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This might have contributed to Thornhill's self-deprecatory digs at his own heavy drinking:-

"I have several bartenders who depend on me."
Sings "I've grown accustomed to my bourbon."
When told that the other men had a head start on the drinking he replies "That won't last long."

---

And he tells his mother how many martinis he's going to have at the club "so you don't have to sniff my breath like a bloodhound."

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I notice that Eva Marie Saint wears a ginger-colored dress on Mount Rushmore. She's wearing something similar while kissing Bob Hope in 'That Certain Feeling' (1956). Perhaps that's the coloring Hitchcock visualized for her in a major scene he wanted her in.

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Might be. I've the other reason he wanted that color dress was so that Saint could be SEEN in long shots on the Rushmore sets. (Much as Grant does that finale not in his gray suit, but in a white shirt and black slacks.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

People do have a dig at the one green costume Tippi Hedren wears throughout 'The Birds.' Hitchcock used the wolf-whistle piece from the advert he had seen of her. This proves that he did borrow from his leading star's latest screen performances.

---

There you go. Its rather as if some of Hitchcock's most famous characters had "signature clothes" they wore. For Tippi Hedren, its that green outfit(though she starts the movie in a black and white outfit in SF.) Cary Grant in NXNW wore a distinctive gray suit("...like a coat of armor," one critic wrote.) James Stewart's Scottie in Vertigo often wears a brown suit with matching hat. Kim Novak as Madeleine in Vertigo is a "vision in white." Henry Fonda in The Wrong Man wears a hat a lot -- but with a big, heavy overcoat on. Paul Newman wears a checked overcoat through much of Torn Curtain -- until he gets blood on it while killing the enemy spy Gromek.