BOB COE IS an unsung hero
in one of cinema’s greatest
moments. A crop-duster pilot
from Wasco, California, Coe
flew the Naval Aircraft N3N
Canary, a World War II Navy
pilot trainer nicknamed the
Yellow Peril, that strafed Cary
Grant wearing a grey Savile
Row suit as he ran for his life
playing Roger Thornhill in
Alfred Hitchcock’sNorth By
Northwest. Coe was paid $150
per day with an additional $100
for every hour spent in the
air, but what he helped create
was priceless.Northwest’s
cropdusting scene remains
a masterclass in knuckle-
tightening action cinema.
“On the surface it’s
ridiculous,” observedL.A.
Confidentialdirector Curtis
Hanson. “Why would the
villains lure Cary Grant to the
middle of nowhere in order to
shoot him from an airplane?
And yet itfeelsright.”
The idea for the set-piece
came out of Hitchcock’s desire
to create a pursuit sequence
completely different from the
clichéd chase down a shadowy
cobbled alley. “What was the
antithesis of a scene like this?”
Hitchcock asked superfan and
interviewer François Truffaut.
“Just nothing. Just bright
sunshine and a blank, open
countryside with barely
a house or tree in which any
lurking menaces could hide.”
Screenwriter Ernest Lehman
recalled spitballing a murder
method with Hitchcock who
suggested the villains kill
Thornhill by tornado. “But
they’re trying to kill him,”
Lehman shot back. “How
are they going to work up
a cyclone?” At some point the
pair landed on a cropduster.
The scene was shot
over three days in early October
1958 on Garces Highway, East
Bakersfield, California (the
location was doubling for
Indiana, faux square highway
signs selling the illusion). It was
so hot it became a rare sequence
Hitchcock directed in a short-
sleeved shirt rather than his
trademark suit. The filmmaker
shot the action entirely howREVIEW
Lehman had laid it out in
the script but with a crucial
difference: the writer had
included POVs from a
helicopter; Hitchcock played
it entirely from Thornhill’s
perspective, locking us into his
terrified worldview. Close-ups
of Grant hitting the deck as
the plane flies low overhead
were later recreated on an
MGM soundstage with the
plane footage projected
behind the actor.
If, as Curtis Hanson,
suggests, there are are easier
ways to murder someone than
contracting a low-flying biplane,
Lehman argues the bad guys
(James Mason, Martin Landau)
wanted the murder to look like
an accident, meaning a simple
bullet wouldn’t cut it. But
Guillermo del Toro has
suggested there is something
else at work. “You don’t
question the logic because the
motion and the emotion carries
you through. Reality is boring,
reality you get every day. Truth
you don’t get that much.” And
the truth is, travelling through
Hitch’s hyper world isn’t like
dusting crops, boy.IAN FREERNORTH BY NORTHWESTIS OUT NOW
ON DVD AND DOWNLOADINSTANT
TRIVIA
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1
MGM planted the corn field
that Cary Grant hides in
especially for the movie.2
The name on the truck the
plane crashes into is
‘Magnum Oil’ — this was
company Hitchcock’s
son-in-law worked for.3
Crop-dusting pilot Bob Coe
died in 2007, aged 85. At his
funeral, a photo of Cary
Grant fleeing his plane was
placed on his casket.4
In the story, the plane is
flown by Vandamm’s
henchman Licht, played by
Robert Ellenstein. But,
because the plane crashes
without showing Licht’s
face, it means the character
disappears from the film
without explanation.North By Northwest
Above:Cary
Grant’s Roger
Thornhill runs
for his life.How iconic
images came
to lifeLANDMARK