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"North by Northwest" blunder
One of the most glaring visual errors in major motion-picture history was Alfred Hitchcock's decision to use this shot from North by Northwest (1959). A seated pre-pubescent kid (directly to the right of Eva Marie Saint's left shoulder blade), having obviously grown tried of listening to loud blam! blam! pistol shots over and over in rehearsals and/or previous takes, plugs his ears prior to Saint "shooting" Cary Grant.
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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on March 30, 2007 at 6:26 PM
comment #1
jeffmcm
says ...
Obviously this was before video and Hitchcock assumed nobody would be watching and re-watching the movie enough to care.
Posted by jeffmcm
at March 31, 2007 9:52 AM
comment #2
christian
says ...
here's my french theory:
the boy saw the gun, got scared and plugged his ears.
finis.
Posted by christian
at March 31, 2007 9:57 AM
comment #3
gruver1
says ...
Wells to jeffmcm: It's still sloppy as hell. His team must have seen the boo-boo. Hitch's assistant director screwed up big-time here. Of course, if such a blunder had happened today (i.e., if this was the only take printed and intended for use), the kid's ear-plugging could easily be CG-erased.
Posted by gruver1
at March 31, 2007 9:58 AM
comment #4
thevisceral
says ...
It's a Brechtian device.
Posted by thevisceral
at March 31, 2007 10:13 AM
comment #5
Wrecktum
says ...
During the same sequence a mother and two kids (clearly not part of the shoot) are in the background waving to the camera as Grant and Saint act their scene. A lot more famous boo-boo from one of the greatest thrillers ever made.
Posted by Wrecktum
at March 31, 2007 11:58 AM
comment #6
alynch
says ...
There's a worse error later in the movie at the Mt. Rushmore scenes. Cary Grant is wrestling with one of the bad guys and they actually roll onto the painted background. It looks as if they're floating in mid-air.
Posted by alynch
at March 31, 2007 12:00 PM
comment #7
jeffmcm
says ...
Well if you want to talk about really big mistakes, at the end of the movie Cary Grant is having sex with Eva Marie Saint and instead of showing his penis entering her vagina, Hitchcock cuts to an unrelated shot of the train they are in. What a ripoff!
Posted by jeffmcm
at March 31, 2007 12:22 PM
comment #8
Dublin101
says ...
"It's a Brechtian device."
Even if it's not I like that excuse. I think it's a rather charming blooper and I see no reason to be irritated by it. I mean, North by Northwest is a breezy trifle that has does not take itself seriously and this mistake is consistent with the light-hearted tone of the movie.
Posted by Dublin101
at March 31, 2007 12:25 PM
comment #9
Wrecktum
says ...
Absolutely, Dublin101. Wells is, yet again, being a snotty curmudgeon. Cricizing a Hitchcock movie because an extra (a child at that!) screws up in one shot...what's that all about.
Next thing you know he'll be vilifying ET for the "Penis Breath" scene kurfuffle.
Posted by Wrecktum
at March 31, 2007 12:33 PM
comment #10
Dublin101
says ...
At the risk of sounding like a brown nose, I actually like the fact that Jeff is a hardchaw. If I agreed with all of his opinions I probably would be as engaged by this site.
Plus the guy does put up a lot of people slagging him off on his own webpage.
Posted by Dublin101
at March 31, 2007 12:45 PM
comment #11
Dublin101
says ...
Typo correction: I probably would NOT be as engaged by this site.
Posted by Dublin101
at March 31, 2007 12:48 PM
comment #12
bmcintire
says ...
My guess is that Jeffrey threw this ancient blooper up on his site to start a thread of either notorious or little-known (depending on how new this particular tidbit is to him) gaffes. Aside from a couple of bites on the same film, it turned into another Weels pile-on. Hilarious.
Posted by bmcintire
at March 31, 2007 1:20 PM
comment #13
bmcintire
says ...
Wells, Weels, whomever.
Posted by bmcintire
at March 31, 2007 1:22 PM
comment #14
bfm
says ...
Hey, I'm a parent. Maybe his Dad was just telling him that if he didn't eat his lunch, they'd be no ice cream. Sticking your fingers in your ears is just the kind of thing my son would do in protest :-)
Posted by bfm
at March 31, 2007 1:22 PM
comment #15
cjKennedy
says ...
That's it. I'm burning my Hitchcock collection. What an f'ing hack.
Posted by cjKennedy
at March 31, 2007 2:32 PM
comment #16
DarthCorleone
says ...
Yeah, I do wonder about the motive of this post, as I suspect the vast majority of the readers here who are fans of North By Northwest were already aware of this flub. I clicked on the comments thinking that there was some new information about this scene and that the "read more" link on the article failed to pop up.
So, I'll share a famous gaffe: after Bishop is torn in half, you can see Lance Henriksen's lower half in the hole in the floor as he saves Newt from the vacuum of space at the end of Aliens.
Anyway, if nothing else, reading this comments section cause me to learn a little about Brecht.
For the record - mistakes be damned - North By Northwest is flawless as far as I'm concerned.
Posted by DarthCorleone
at March 31, 2007 3:29 PM
comment #17
Dellos
says ...
if you look closely the guy with the white hair
has his fingers in his ears too
Posted by Dellos
at March 31, 2007 4:48 PM
comment #18
Chris Willman
says ...
Here is my favorite gaffe of all time:
On the laserdisc of "Body of Evidence," there's a sex scene between Madonna and Willem Dafoe. And, at the bottom of the frame, when all the thrusting is going on, you can see... Dafoe's limp dick, flopping around listlessly! I kid you not. This may have just been a case of bad framing on the LD, and perhaps it was never shown that way, correctly projected, in theaters, and I'm sure it must have been "corrected" on the DVD. (Anyone up to checking?)
Anyway, I like to believe that this was deliberate on the director's part--a statement that the truest response to Madonna in femme fatale mode is flaccidity.
Posted by Chris Willman
at March 31, 2007 9:41 PM
comment #19
Hallick
says ...
Looks like wet willy practice to me.
Posted by Hallick
at March 31, 2007 11:24 PM
comment #20
Wrecktum
says ...
If you look closely during Christian Slater's famous, hot sex scene in The Name of the Rose, you can see the same kind of limp-dickedness.
Posted by Wrecktum
at March 31, 2007 11:26 PM
comment #21
Silverscreenvideos
says ...
Why didn't he hire someone to do some CGI work and replace the kid with Fred Astaire and a vacuum cleaner?
Posted by Silverscreenvideos
at March 31, 2007 11:28 PM
comment #22
Cadavra
says ...
Another noteworthy gaffe: JURASSIC PARK shows humans and dinosaurs living in the same era!
Posted by Cadavra
at April 1, 2007 12:31 PM
comment #23
Aladdin Sane
says ...
Cadavra, that's awesome!
Little known fact that Hitchcock came out of the editing room and said, "Fuck that kid!" after his final cut of NxNW.
No one knew exactly what he meant, until this week, when Jeff Wells, in a brilliant moment of investigative journalism, blew the lid off the entire thing!
Okay, seriously, is there a movie around that is completely gaffe free?
Posted by Aladdin Sane
at April 1, 2007 8:35 PM
comment #24
malibugigolo
says ...
Also: The gun was not loaded with real bullets!
Posted by malibugigolo
at April 1, 2007 9:40 PM
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