Waving at Hitchcock: A New Movie Mistake in North by Northwest
20 September 2025
Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959, deutscher Titel: Der unsichtbare Dritte) is a masterclass in suspense, style, and cinematic precision. But even the most iconic thrillers have their unscripted moments. Sometimes, spontaneity finds its way into the frame.
While watching the film, an unintended moment came to light: just after Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) exits the train, he steps out of the washroom in his suit, having removed the porter's uniform. At that exact moment, a mother and her two children pass by, and the kids cheerfully wave into the camera. The girl walking ahead of them also looks directly into the camera. It is brief and easy to miss. A moment that does not belong, but remains visible to those who look closely.
For comparison, I have included another well-known moment from the Mount Rushmore visitor center scene, where a young boy preemptively plugs his ears before Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) fires a gun. That one's been noted before. The train station wave? Not yet.
Station Scene: Unscripted Awareness at 01:01:25
As Roger Thornhill exits the washroom and steps into the station, a mother walks past with her two children. The kids wave directly toward the camera crew, and the mother, visibly amused, allows herself a brief smile. She knows they are in a film and chooses not to interfere.
Check the Scene – Unexpected Interaction
And for comparison, there is a moment that is already familiar:
Visitor Center: Predictable Surprise at 1:40:55
In the Mount Rushmore visitor center, a young boy plugs his ears just before the gun is fired. The moment is well-known among film enthusiasts and serves as a quiet reminder that not everyone on screen follows the director's timeline. Whether anticipating a loud bang or waving at the director, they rarely wait for the cue.
Check the Scene – Visitor Center Timing
Director's cut, The One Master Frame
A visual analysis of North by Northwest through all 1,566 I-frames1, arranged in a 54×29 mosaic.
Runtime: 2h 10m 30s2. Rated: frame-heavy.
7,830 seconds of cinema, with one I-frame captured every 5 seconds.
A mosaic of suspense, one frame at a time, for continuity analysis and visual structure.
Zoom in for more continuity errors3
More slips from the same classic
Details everywhere, even in the last frame.
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An I-frame (intra-coded frame) is a complete image in a video stream that can be displayed independently, without relying on any other frames. It serves as a reference point for decoding, unlike P-frames and B-frames, which only store changes between frames and depend on surrounding data to be reconstructed. ↩
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The original film runs 136 minutes at 24 frames per second (fps), which is standard for cinema. In Germany and other PAL regions, films are converted to 25 fps for broadcast and DVD. This causes a PAL speed-up of about 4%, meaning the entire movie plays slightly faster.
Adjusted runtime = 136 ÷ (25 ÷ 24) ≈ 130.5 minutes
So the German version is about 5½ minutes shorter, even though no scenes are cut, it is just played faster. This is a common quirk in PAL-format video releases. ↩ -
All screenshots, video excerpts, and the frame mosaic, including a selected frame with adjusted brightness to highlight visual details, are used under the quotation exception (§ 51 UrhG) for the purpose of critical commentary and analysis. The original material is from the film North by Northwest (1959, MGM), as broadcast by arte. The use is non-commercial and limited to what is necessary to illustrate identified continuity issues, filmmaking inconsistencies, visual structure, and unscripted actions. ↩
