Ciro Polese

Filmed the year I was born, North By Northwest has been a favorite of mine since my early teens. As a huge fan of the classic James Bond series, I totally understand why the Bond producers had their eyes on Carey Grant as James Bond - though it wouldn’t have actually worked. It’s also easy to visualize Alfred Hitchcock as a Bond director. That would have worked. What a fun film! Sure, Hollywood makes a few good films now and then today, but the elegance and class of a Carey Grant and Eva Marie Saint are long gone.

I’m not always happy being in my 60’s till I realize the fact I’m old enough to have scene The Great Race on the big screen. What a class act comedy. These were days when Hollywood still had talent.

It’s crazy, at at my 100th viewing, FRWL still gets me. Watched it Mothers Day with family. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, this truly is the best film in the series. Connery’s performance is as tight and as perfect as can be. Oh sure, he’s much cooler and slick in Goldfinger, and that film moves quicker, but FRWL has a great script, one of the series best casts and John Barry’s first score. Unlike Goldfinger, the very next Bond film, FRWL manages not to trip. A good example is the Gassing The Gangsters sequence in Goldfinger. It was totally unnecessary. While On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is my personal favorite film, FRWL remains the Ian Fleming Bond film.