Daily Dialogue — February 9, 2013

“Now you listen to me, I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself ‘slightly’ killed.”

— North by Northwest (1959), written by Ernest Lehman

http://static.movieclips.com/embedplayer.swf?shortid=wD3Ro

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week is falsely accused, suggested by churnage who also suggested today’s movie.

Trivia: Ernest Lehman became the film’s scriptwriter following a lunchtime meeting with Alfred Hitchcock, arranged by their mutual friend, composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock originally wanted him to work on his new project The Wreck of the Mary Deare (which was eventually made instead by Michael Anderson), but Lehman refused. Hitchcock was so keen to work with him that he suggested they work together on a different film using Mary Deare’s budget (without MGM’s approval) even though he had only three ideas to set Lehman on his way: mistaken identity, the United Nations building, and a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore.

Dialogue On Dialogue: One of the great mistaken identity movies of all time.