posted:
"I seem to recall that Hitchcock disowned the notion that this was done to
prolong the mystery for the audience, or to heighten dramatic tension.
Apparently, he and his scriptwriter Ernest Lehman could think of no
plausible way to explain why a government agency would willingly strand an
innocent person in harm's way (a less cynical time, the 50s) -- so they
just avoided it altogether."
 
 
If Hitch did say that, surely he was being disingenuous.  The *plausibility*
in daily terms may be strained but one fairly explicit theme in the film is
the willingness of the government to endanger innocent civilians (and not-so
-innocent ones as well) in the name of "national security."  In the scene where
we first see the Professor and his group (just after the "real" Mr. Townsend
has been killed at the U.N. and Thornhill/Grant blamed for it), The Prof.
willingly admits that Thornhill was caught by accident but considers it a lucky
break, because Thornhill will attract attention away from the *real* agent,
Eve.  "What do we do?  We do nothing!" says the Prof. and the one woman member
of the council says, wistfully, "Goodbye, Mr. Thornhill, wherever you are."
 
So actually, two elements are involved in the revelation scene at the Chicago
airport--the Prof.'s information to Thornhill wouldbe redundant and take up
too much screen time to explain in detail; and his exact line of explanation
to Thornhill is left obscured.  Thornhill is suitably indignant at discovering
he's been used and is ready to abandon all until the Prof. once again
manipulates him by letting him know that Eve was a double agent and that
*Thornhill* has endangered her by casting suspicion on her.
 
The Prof. lies again by promising Thornhill that Eve's job will be done once
they stage the fake shooting at Mt. Rushmore, and when Thornhill protests again,
the Prof. has a forest ranger punch his lights out.
 
Implicit in all this is a cold-war subtext in which a film, however, subtly,
actually protests government control over individuals in the name of "national
security" and a government which lies for its own sake--an interesting prelude
to the next decade, from The Bay of Pigs to the Gulf of Tonkin to Watergate
itself.
 
It strikes me that this is one of the first films I can think of to more or less
openly criticize the government or the Red Scare.  Of course, there were
independent productions like POINT OF ORDER and very subtle allegories about
McCarthyism in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS and HIGH NOON (so subtle that
critics still debate exactly what is being criticized)., but even THE
MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (which still proclaims a staunch anti-Communism) was not
made until 1962, well after the death of Tailgunner Joe.  Are there earlier
works that explicitly criticize government obsession with communism and/or
national security?
 
Don Larsson, Mankato State U (MN)
 
----
To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L
in the message.  Problems?  Contact [log in to unmask]