North by northwest

Getting back to my Hitchcock basics, I saw North by Northwest the other night. Supposedly, the last of his hits in the 60s before Hitchcock went into a career slump - a brief one though. This movie can so easily be remade in Thamizh - the aged hero effortlessly played by Cary Grant (twice divorced smooth talker) will definite have a few takers in Kollywood - might be the slick thriller follow-up to Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu for Kamalahaasan. The only burning question is which national monument in India can replace Mt.Rushmore? The answer to this has the potential for the box office boosting controversy that some producers seek at the time of story discussion. My other major worry is over the damned cell phones. Hitchcock was lucky to have lived in that bygone era. Adapting the script would be a big problem in the present day as many plot developments are based on the fact that the protagonist is far away from a telephone. Bloody technology... coming in the way of a good story. Finally, do we have airplanes fertilizing the fields in India? I guess not! So, it would be difficult to recreate the iconic plane chase of the movie. Well maybe it need not be a fertilizer plane... a simple two-seater plane in the middle of nowhere can be achieved I guess. So there you are... some challenges but an interesting premise for a Thamizh thriller. It would be a bigger headache in Hindi - Sanjay Gupta would make a Sanjay Dutt movie out of this plot I guess. Or... Ram Gopal Verma would make it with new faces and shoot the climax in the Qutb Minar or something and India's culture warriors would be offended. No, I don't see that happening.