Free Republic

Barack Obama seems to know as much about movies as he does foreign policy: [Obama] did express curiosity about the filming of a chase scene in “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint that included a death-defying scramble over Rushmore’s presidential faces. “How did they get up there in the first place?” he asked ranger Wesley Jensen. “They didn’t. It was a movie set,” Jensen told him. Methinks the park ranger deserves a merit award for not using the word, “duh.” Five Feet of Fury has other Obama questions about the movies:...

After two days of intense legal questioning, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts finally addressed a subject most Americans could relate to: His favorite movies are "Doctor Zhivago" and "North by Northwest." Frustrated by Roberts' answers, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested on Wednesday that if he dared to ask the nominee his favorite films, he would get a discussion of cinematography and why "Casablanca" is considered one of the greatest. Instead, Roberts answered flat out, bringing laughter from the audience and senators alike. "North by Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock's 1959 classic, starred Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason and Martin Landau,...

Ernest Lehman, a noted Hollywood screenwriter whose work included classic films of the 1950's and 60's like "North by Northwest," "Sweet Smell of Success" and "The Sound of Music," died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 89 and lived in Los Angeles.The apparent cause was a heart attack, his wife, Laurie, said.One of the best-known screenwriters in Hollywood in the postwar years, Mr. Lehman worked with many of the most prominent directors of the period, including Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. A master of adaptation, he wrote or was a co-writer of film scripts for several Broadway musicals, including...