We often fall in love with a movie because of just a scene or two rather than the movie itself as a whole. Well, this scene is one of my favorite scenes of all time, including all the movies I've watched. It's actually the other actor, Malcolm Atterbury, that impresses me more than the great Cary Grant in this scene. Thank you.
Thing is, the guy sizes him up sees no threat and maybe an idea that he's good. He mentions the cropduster not dusting crops. When he gets on the bus he gives a look like Roger better watch out, just based on what he sees
Actually, Malcolm Atterbury is perhaps best known for his uncredited role in this Alfred Hitchcock movie, as the rural man who points to the distant plane (which shortly thereafter begins attacking Cary Grant's character in the movie) "That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops!" He also had roles in movies such as The Birds, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Crime of Passion, Blue Denim, Wild River, Advise and Consent, and Hawaii, his last film being Emperor of the North Pole released in 1973.... Thank you.
+Red Judas That is an interesting point, humans used to look at the land and the area about them. I still don't have a smart phone. Don't want to stare at blue light while life is happening.
There are things out there on the internet that don't necessarily have our best interests at heart, so I agree with your point there, Dee. :) I wouldn't rule technology out, too.
Funny, can see these days only Clooney trying to imitate Cary with his looks n suit.. And we dont see such suits either - epitome of greatness-Cary Grant with his Master of Suspense..
jimmy stewart wanted this role,hitchcock didnt want him.he waited for stewart to start a movie and he got grant to do it while stewart was committed for the film he was working on.thus giving hitchcock an excuse for picking grant.
I'd love to see this film for the first time, not knowing what's going to happen next. Not that I don't love re-watching Hitchcock films for all the layers and details, but I do envy people watching a suspense laden story with the full impact of "what the hell's happening here?" going on for them.
phoebephoebo .sydney I knew the plane was gonna go after him because I saw parodies on the internet. I didn't know how he will escape and was surprised when the dumbass pilot hit the truck lol. Besides that I knew nothing about it.
It’s brilliant how misplaced the ellegant Cary Grant is in such a scenary, and how dead quiet everything is at the beginning and how it’s going to turn next.
Love this movie and this scene but seriously, does route 41 in western Indiana look like this - maybe at least a bit (?) - always thought that arrow sign across the road leading to that side lane was mysterious and cool.
Would be interesting to see what that exact site looks like now. While filmed in California there probably are prairie scenes similar to that maybe in western Kansas, not Indiana or Illinois. By the way, love that 50s black Cadillac that drives by - they looked like (and were) true luxury cars.
Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter, summed up this scene brilliantly: “Only Alfred Hitchcock could make a scene where nothing happens for almost eight minutes and it still holds your attention.”
Can any of you film buffs tell me what the technical expression is for what they did here? You can see that Cary Grant is not really walking where the scene takes place and that his image is impressed onto the scene, but what is that called? I know that in the present era, this is all accomplished by CGI and the actor just walks in front of a green screen and the background is then created artificially, but here the film crew obviously DID film the actual background and then impressed Cary Grant walking on it -- what is that process called? Thanks.
+Martin Gdanski It's called matte painting, my friend! They would film the scene with a matte (a cache, if you will) covering part of the lens, thus, leaving part of the pellicule on which the movie was filmed intact. And then they would paint the needed background and refilm the 'scene' with the opposite cache, leaving the already filmed part untouched. In old times, a cache had to be cut for each frame if something moved in it, like say, an actor. It's still called matte painting today! However, the paintings are now done digitally, can move to imply perspective, and are simply composited into the movie by removing the blue/green screens behind the actors and pre-built set! Hope that answers your questions!
+Buligete There also used to be other, more complex processes that included refilming the already filmed action, which sometimes came with a loss of quality of the image, but generally, matte painting was the main technique used!
Actually, Grant and Atterbury were both filmed in this particular scene on location. They might have used Grant's stunt double in the two-second shot with the semi truck passing between him and the camera but, if so, that's the only shot without Grant. The only matte used in this particular scene was the high crane shot because you could see the skyline of Delano, California on the horizon (the scene was shot on Garces Highway.) Normally, such a matte would never work because of the instability of the crane but, after attaching guy wires to it and then raising it slightly to put tension on the guy wires, it was stable enough to pull it off and it looks perfect. The subsequent scene, not shown here, with the plane attacking Grant, does have some process shots of Grant in the ditch, but the rest of that scene, with Grant running across the field and the plane behind him, was also filmed on location with Grant.
I wish I didn't know that the plane was going to attack Roger before I watched this movie because this scene is so tense even when you know what's gonna happen. I can't imagine how much movie goers in 1959 were on the edge of their seats waiting to see what would happen. The only other scene I can compare it to that I myself watched without knowing how it ended is in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood when Cliff goes into the house at Spahn Ranch to look for George with the Mansons all watching him.
The other actor's name is Malcolm Atterbury. May be his most famous role. www.imdb.com/name/nm0041021/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t21 In the 60s TV series, THE FUGITIVE, he played three different sheriffs in three different episodes~!
It's an iconic scene, with good misdirection and mystery, but strangely little suspense. Other filmmakers have copied this idea many times since (there's a scene in Se7en that's reminiscent of it, for example) and milked it for the atmosphere and suspense.
+Adrian Bailey - Absolutely! I was wondering the same thing. A sidewalk actually applies to an asphalted street in a town, etc. Actually, the scene is that of a deserted roadside one. The scene is not even a paved path for pedestrians at the side of a street or road, which would describe an actual sidewalk. Thank you.
No rear projection or process shots were used at all in this particular scene. In fact, the entire scene including the subsequent one with the plane attacking Grant (not shown here) was filmed on location with Grant in attendance. The only process shot was the two-second one where Grant has jumped into the ditch (they used rear projection on a sound stage at MGM.) Grant's double was used on the one-second shot of the truck pushing him over while stopping and the actual plane crash shot, less than one second, was a model shot.
+pix046 - Certainly not a sidewalk, you're correct. In fact it's a deserted roadside scene - one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, nonetheless. Thank you.
0:35 rip prinse nö cämtrailce päck Zen v v white sunrice ? well änyweh Au töö bäännh vv ´Hit Lair öslö häd autöbänn -.- nönö you häff tv gö out xD v v smärrth v v the bläg kärr is eld´äir... so yes hitläirce beetle. egypt ? anyvveih gr8 scene with the double? truck and slöw? time ^ ^ hearing gräss grouvv?? hc is möre zen just big & sysPence ??xD
The silence in this scene is the best score.
Gary Grant cinéma américain Hollywood star américaine Hollywood classique
nö LeääF nö rässzell vv
"That's funny."
"What?"
"That plane's dusting crops where there ain't no crops."
Marvellously ominous.
We often fall in love with a movie because of just a scene or two rather than the movie itself as a whole. Well, this scene is one of my favorite scenes of all time, including all the movies I've watched. It's actually the other actor, Malcolm Atterbury, that impresses me more than the great Cary Grant in this scene. Thank you.
"Can't say it is cuz it ain't." Great dialogue in this movie.
Thing is, the guy sizes him up sees no threat and maybe an idea that he's good. He mentions the cropduster not dusting crops. When he gets on the bus he gives a look like Roger better watch out, just based on what he sees
Arguably the greatest thriller scenes in movie history
It's amazing how Hitchcock builds up the anticipation with this scene. Definitely, his trademark.
Genius!
Actually, Malcolm Atterbury is perhaps best known for his uncredited role in this Alfred Hitchcock movie, as the rural man who points to the distant plane (which shortly thereafter begins attacking Cary Grant's character in the movie) "That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops!" He also had roles in movies such as The Birds, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Crime of Passion, Blue Denim, Wild River, Advise and Consent, and Hawaii, his last film being Emperor of the North Pole released in 1973.... Thank you.
One of my favorite scenes from an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
+Powerranger6342 - One of my all-time favorite scenes of all movies ever! Thank you.
"Sidewalk Scene" in the middle of 1950's bald-ass prairie lol.
Wonderful bit of subtle foreshadowing when the truck covers Thornhill in dust as it passes. It's the little things that make a movie a masterpiece.
Cary Grant is one of the greatest movie actors ever
Hot Day
Amazing scene. Love it. What a master Hitchcock was!
One of the greatest hitch-hiker scenes without putting up your thumb for a lift in movie history..
This is such a great scene that people fail to realize it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Probably My All Time Favourite Movie...
This movie is now аvailablе to watch hеere => twitter.com/99fb116f5917ad82b/status/795841929493655552 sidеeewalk sсenе nоrth bу northwеst
All that waiting and no Iphone to pretend to stare at.
+Red Judas No IPhone's back in the day, but that's a funny way of looking at it! :D
+Red Judas That is an interesting point, humans used to look at the land and the area about them. I still don't have a smart phone. Don't want to stare at blue light while life is happening.
There are things out there on the internet that don't necessarily have our best interests at heart, so I agree with your point there, Dee. :) I wouldn't rule technology out, too.
+Dee Donner Ramone With regards to that sentiment - To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Epic, very special mood to me!
Hell, Hitchcock was such a genius, that even he outdid himself! Oh my! :D
The Calm before the Storm! 😮
🔥♥️🙏One of the best Scene and Movie in the whole Cinema History!
Funny, can see these days only Clooney trying to imitate Cary with his looks n suit..
And we dont see such suits either - epitome of greatness-Cary Grant with his Master of Suspense..
Gotta say, Clooney does a great job at being a reasonable facsimile of Cary Grant.
jimmy stewart wanted this role,hitchcock didnt want him.he waited for stewart to start a movie and he got grant to do it while stewart was committed for the film he was working on.thus giving hitchcock an excuse for picking grant.
I'd love to see this film for the first time, not knowing what's going to happen next. Not that I don't love re-watching Hitchcock films for all the layers and details, but I do envy people watching a suspense laden story with the full impact of "what the hell's happening here?" going on for them.
I saw it yesterday for the first time and had no prior knownledge about the movie. My God it was amazing.
You're a lucky guy :-)
Did you guess what was going to happen to him when he was dropped off by the bus?
phoebephoebo .sydney I knew the plane was gonna go after him because I saw parodies on the internet. I didn't know how he will escape and was surprised when the dumbass pilot hit the truck lol. Besides that I knew nothing about it.
It's impossible to lead a spoiler-free life these days ;-)
It’s brilliant how misplaced the ellegant Cary Grant is in such a scenary, and how dead quiet everything is at the beginning and how it’s going to turn next.
genius = north by northwest
1/2 of a great scene.
The guy talking to Cary Grant is Malcolm Attebury-one of the old time character actors-that guy played everything in a long career.
+navblue20 - Yes, Malcolm Atterbury! That's one of my favorite movie scenes of all, thanks to that actor in that role.
Luv this scene :)
Love this movie and this scene but seriously, does route 41 in western Indiana look like this - maybe at least a bit (?) - always thought that arrow sign across the road leading to that side lane was mysterious and cool.
No. One person described as an Indiana cornfield after a nuclear holocaust.
It was filmed outside of Bakersfield
Would be interesting to see what that exact site looks like now. While filmed in California there probably are prairie scenes similar to that maybe in western Kansas, not Indiana or Illinois. By the way, love that 50s black Cadillac that drives by - they looked like (and were) true luxury cars.
Favorite part of my favorite movie
Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter, summed up this scene brilliantly: “Only Alfred Hitchcock could make a scene where nothing happens for almost eight minutes and it still holds your attention.”
Can any of you film buffs tell me what the technical expression is for what they did here? You can see that Cary Grant is not really walking where the scene takes place and that his image is impressed onto the scene, but what is that called?
I know that in the present era, this is all accomplished by CGI and the actor just walks in front of a green screen and the background is then created artificially, but here the film crew obviously DID film the actual background and then impressed Cary Grant walking on it -- what is that process called?
Thanks.
+Martin Gdanski It's called matte painting, my friend! They would film the scene with a matte (a cache, if you will) covering part of the lens, thus, leaving part of the pellicule on which the movie was filmed intact. And then they would paint the needed background and refilm the 'scene' with the opposite cache, leaving the already filmed part untouched. In old times, a cache had to be cut for each frame if something moved in it, like say, an actor.
It's still called matte painting today! However, the paintings are now done digitally, can move to imply perspective, and are simply composited into the movie by removing the blue/green screens behind the actors and pre-built set!
Hope that answers your questions!
+Buligete There also used to be other, more complex processes that included refilming the already filmed action, which sometimes came with a loss of quality of the image, but generally, matte painting was the main technique used!
Actually, Grant and Atterbury were both filmed in this particular scene on location. They might have used Grant's stunt double in the two-second shot with the semi truck passing between him and the camera but, if so, that's the only shot without Grant.
The only matte used in this particular scene was the high crane shot because you could see the skyline of Delano, California on the horizon (the scene was shot on Garces Highway.) Normally, such a matte would never work because of the instability of the crane but, after attaching guy wires to it and then raising it slightly to put tension on the guy wires, it was stable enough to pull it off and it looks perfect.
The subsequent scene, not shown here, with the plane attacking Grant, does have some process shots of Grant in the ditch, but the rest of that scene, with Grant running across the field and the plane behind him, was also filmed on location with Grant.
But damn . . . . . that suit!
montage in essence
Why’d you cut it before the sidewalk entered the scene?
"Hot sun beating down
Burning my feet just walking around
Hot sun makin' me sweat
Biplane's getting close, hasn't got me yet"
😂😂😂😂
What a actor!...
I wish I didn't know that the plane was going to attack Roger before I watched this movie because this scene is so tense even when you know what's gonna happen. I can't imagine how much movie goers in 1959 were on the edge of their seats waiting to see what would happen. The only other scene I can compare it to that I myself watched without knowing how it ended is in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood when Cliff goes into the house at Spahn Ranch to look for George with the Mansons all watching him.
" That's funny:
" What:
" That plane is dusting crops where there ain't no crops:...
He gives the city boy a heads up.
can someone write the dialogue in english ? thank you !
What language do you think it is?
The other actor's name is Malcolm Atterbury. May be his most famous role.
www.imdb.com/name/nm0041021/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t21
In the 60s TV series, THE FUGITIVE, he played three different sheriffs in three different episodes~!
+John Cooper - This is one of my all-time favorite scenes ever, thanks to Malcolm Atterbury.
What sidewalk?
Roger Thornhill should have gotten on that bus.
Master of the slow burn..
Hitchcock=GENIUS
You know what they need there is a Walmart....
A Walmart would at least explain the bus stop. I mean, why IS the bus stop there?
The big black Cadillac
Cary Grant crossed the road to ask that guy why the fuck do they call this the Sidewalk Scene
Excellent
This is not a sidewalk, it's a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. Great scene, bad title.
this scene also, strangly enough perhaps, reminds me of Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath." Must be the dust and the empty fields.
ah, those were the years.....my grandfather was a young man in those days.....what it must have been LIKE......he is still alive today, 84.
Sidewalk?
Why is the plane is trying to kill him?
i wish i could live around there
Glorious. Just....isn't it?
Un niveau de maitrise exceptionnel.
3:11 that guy played Al the Cop in The Birds.
1:14 "Oh crap... Oh wait, its just Satan."
It's an iconic scene, with good misdirection and mystery, but strangely little suspense. Other filmmakers have copied this idea many times since (there's a scene in Se7en that's reminiscent of it, for example) and milked it for the atmosphere and suspense.
sidewalk??
+Adrian Bailey - Absolutely! I was wondering the same thing. A sidewalk actually applies to an asphalted street in a town, etc. Actually, the scene is that of a deserted roadside one. The scene is not even a paved path for pedestrians at the side of a street or road, which would describe an actual sidewalk. Thank you.
Why a bus stop in the middle of fucking nowhere?
you sound like someone who lives in the suburbs and owns a car
Busses used to go transcontinental and stop at little places along the way like this. Remember this is the 1950's - early 60's
Sidewalk. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
That line is from the " Princess Bride ".......
The side of the road...
An iconic scene shot with bluescreen. It was cutting edge technology back then, but is obvious now to the viewer. Still a great scene.
This was NOT bluescreen. That didn't exist in 1959. This is real live action except for the model airplane crash scene insert.
@Safe Nabors, my mistake. This scene was not bluescreen. It was rear projection. Thanks for noticing!
No rear projection or process shots were used at all in this particular scene. In fact, the entire scene including the subsequent one with the plane attacking Grant (not shown here) was filmed on location with Grant in attendance. The only process shot was the two-second one where Grant has jumped into the ditch (they used rear projection on a sound stage at MGM.) Grant's double was used on the one-second shot of the truck pushing him over while stopping and the actual plane crash shot, less than one second, was a model shot.
combien de dessin animé ou de films parodique ont repris cette scène .....
"Sidewalk?"
Teddy Oberman
Not much of a pavement. More a dirt track next to a dirt road.
+pix046 - Certainly not a sidewalk, you're correct. In fact it's a deserted roadside scene - one of my all-time favorite movie scenes, nonetheless. Thank you.
+pix046 - Indeed! That's not a sidewalk scene but a deserted roadside scene. Thank you.
Qui est là pour un devoir en anglais ?
Damn now I know who Justin Trudeau looks like.
La mort au trousees Alfred Hitchcock cinéma américain Hollywood star américaine Hollywood classique
# twingere
:)
kiobjji
The green screen is so bad lmao
0:35 rip prinse nö cämtrailce päck Zen v v
white sunrice ? well änyweh Au töö bäännh vv
´Hit Lair öslö häd autöbänn -.- nönö you häff tv gö out xD v v smärrth v v
the bläg kärr is eld´äir... so yes hitläirce beetle. egypt ? anyvveih gr8 scene with the double? truck and slöw? time ^ ^ hearing gräss grouvv?? hc is möre zen just big & sysPence ??xD
terrific SCENE AS PLANE CRASHES TRUCK