North by Northwest as a Stage Production -- But Not on Broadway

While they were making Psycho, Anthony Perkins -- a young Broadway veteran -- suggested to Hitchcock that when filming was over and after the film had been released, he and Hitchcock should "take this to Broadway as a play."

Hitchcock demurred. But in some ways, Perkins was RIGHT. Like a good stage play the story had great long dialogue sequences (Marion and Sam, Marion and her real estate bosses, Marion and Norman, Norman and Arbogast, Norman and Sam and Lila.) But it also had long silent sequences and how, exactly , could one match the hundred-shot wizardry of the shower scene on the stage?

So no Psycho play. (And later, no Psycho musical -- Universal fended off offers.)

But evidently The 39 Steps got productions. London's West End? Broadway? I don't know. But I've seen posters.

AND...in a recent spin of YouTube surfing, I found a stage production of...North by Northwest.

Just clips. But enough to suggest that...hey...they did that pretty good. For a play.

One is reminded that North by Northwest -- like Psycho right after it -- alternates great silent(or musical) scenes of "pure cinema" with long extremely witty and well written dialogue sequences.

Case in point: the long dialogue near the beginning at the Glen Cove mansion, in which hero Roger Thornhill(Cary Grant in the movie) first meets villain Philip Vandamm(James Mason in the movie) and finds out that his life is in immediate danger of ending -- he faces the real prospect of getting killed as "the wrong man." (Vandamm thinks Thornhill is George Kaplan; Thornhill thinks Vandamm is Lester Townsend. Hoo boy.)

The supertense and witty Glen Cove mansion scene in NXNW benefits immeasurably from Cary Grant and James Mason trading lines in their inimitable, British-based accents. That would be hard to beat in any remake -- movie, TV or stage.

But evidently North by Northwest and that scene have made it to the stage intact...in New Zealand. Or did. I could not make out the dates by the YouTube clips.

The production seems to have been put together in a "polished" and sophisticated way. The leads approximate Grant, Mason and Eva Marie Saint without imitating them (who could?) It looks like they got real menace into the on-stage scene where Vandamm's henchmen grab Thornhill and force liquor down his mouth; the drunk car drive is amusingly done on stage and evidently big process screens make the crop duster scene and Mount Rushmore climax come to some life on stage.

Hey, why not?