The "Hitchcock Building That Changed Cinema Forever" -- And it is NOT the Psycho House

Its 2022, and Alfred Hitchcock continues to merit a new non-fiction book.

It is called "Alfred Hitchcock and the Architecture of Suspense," and even though I have not seen, let alone read, the book, it leaves me smacking my forehead: OF COURSE somebody needed to write a book about the architecture of Hitchcock.

The Psycho House. The Vertigo Bell Tower. The Rear Window Apartment Complex.

And....says one chapter (now excerpted in September Vanity Fair):

The Vandamm House on Mount Rushmore in North by Northwest.

I can't link , but there are links to the article, entitled:

"How One Modernist Building in Alfred Hitchcock's 'North by Northwest' Changed Cinema Forever.

Hey, now. I guess that ol' Psycho house has some competish in Hitchcock history.

I've noted that, by accident of the year of my birth and my young age at the time of seeing them, North by Northwest and Psycho are "forever paired" as the formative movies of my life. There have been bigger action movies and more bloody horror pictures, but something about how NXNW and Psycho came out less than a year apart and "covered all the bases of the thriller in two movies" made me happy then and nostalgic now.

And indeed, if the movies "share a shot," it is this one:

NXNW: Nighttime. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant in bright white shirt and black slacks) walking up a hillside towards the Vandamm house.

Psycho: Nighttime. Arbogast (Martin Balsam in well-tailored suit-and-tie and natty hat) walking up the outdoor stone steps up to the Bates mansion.

Each shot "lingers" so that we can drink in the majesty of the building that the protagonist is approaching. Each shot builds a certain amount of suspense(much more in Arbogast's case) as the hero approaches a house with murderous characters inside(Thornhill KNOWS this, and is careful; Arbogast, alas, does not.)

These shots convey the fantastical place that was "Hitchcock's world" at once OF our world and yet somehow beyond it, a place where movies take place.

The Arbogast climb is more powerful to me not only because the suspense is far scarier(the man is en route to a very horrible and terrifying death) but because the atmosphere is off the charts -- "Psycho in a nutshell." An old, creepy, American Gothic house on a hill (Dracula would be at home there) VS...a very modern man in a 1960 suit-and-tie. One world(Gothic) shall entirely devour another(modern.) That plus the side of the motel screen right (for framing) the creepy overgrowth of the bushy hill, the clarity of the sky here. Its macabre to the max.

But the Thornhill climb has its own quality. Whereas Arbogast climbs in black and white, Roger climbs in Technicolor. The night sky is deep blue. The light emanating from the Vandamm house shoots mild but noticeable beams of white and yellow. And because we know that the house is practically right on top of Mount Rushmore(yet ANOTHER great "Hitchcock fantasy")...we sense the epic space of North by Northwest (much as we did in the earlier major set piece in bright hot sunlight across the wide open spaces of the Indiana plains.) Indeed, both of the NXNW set-pieces are about "man as a tiny figure against a gigantic landscape."

Whereas the Psycho house was a "real" building -- albeit only the front and left side were built -- the NXNW Vandamm house is largely a matte painting. Sometimes that painting is a good one(when Roger approaches) , sometimes not so good (when Vandamm, Leonard and Eve walk away from it on the other side of the house.) Some of the house WAS built on a soundstage(the diagonal beam that Roger climbs to rescue Eve); it all combines into a satisfying whole.

INSIDE: the house is at once very 50's modern and yet somewhat "woodsy" -- there is a "cabin" feel to the place even with its modernity.

The best shot of the entire Vandamm house sequence is INSIDE, when the heavyset maid holds a gun on Roger in a room full of lamps reflected into infinity. Unfortunagely, this "best" shot is immediately followed by a BAD shot -- Vandamm, Leonard and Eve walking away from a painting not only of the house...but of a car parked nearby(it looks like a "Roger Rabbit cartoon car.")

No matter. The overall effect of the Vandamm house is most striking and unforgettable and very "1959."

The article in Vanity Fair notes that "the Vandamm house doesn't appear in North by Northwest until two hours into the movie, and is only on screen for 14 minutes." Fair enough -- but these are the climactic 14 minutes of one of the greatest entertainment movies ever made.

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