Tom Cruise’s secret Alfred Hitchcock remake: “It worked wonderfully well”
When looking at Tom Cruise’s recent slate of action projects, classic cinema and film noir might not be a genre that springs to mind. The actor is known for his full-throttle approach to performing stunts and leading role in action franchises such as Mission: Impossible and Top Gun, becoming inseparable from his slightly excessive running style and terrifying action sequences in which he flings himself from all kinds of high places.
But while he has forged a reputation for this particular breed of cinema, he also dipped his toes into a myriad of other genres throughout the course of his career, working with the likes of Stanley Kubrick on his swan song Eyes Wide Shut and Paul Thomas Anderson on his San Fernando epic, Magnolia.
Cruise may have found equal fame for his roles in independent dramas. However, his portrayal of Ethan Hunt in the spy series has become a landmark role within his filmography, with the film being modelled after an infamous story created by none other than Alfred Hitchcock.
Whether it be the looming threat of uncertainty in Vertigo or the voyeurism in Rear Window, Hitchcock pioneered a certain style of filmmaking that has gone on to influence generations of future directors, with a timeless style and knack for suspense that many have attempted to replicate. Christopher Nolan, the creator of the James Bond franchise, has modelled many stories based on the techniques created by Hitchcock, who defined the thriller and put his own stamp on the detective story.
This is something that the creators of Mission: Impossible took inspiration from when coming up with the story of Ethan Hunt, loosely basing the plot on Hitchcock’s 1946 film, Notorious.
Notorious follows a US government agent called T.R. Devlin who recruits Alicia Huberman as a spy in his quest to help bring the Nazis to justice. However, as they begin to fall in love with one another, Alicia is instructed to win the affections of a Nazi hiding out in Brazil, with Devlin slowly watching the woman he loves becoming increasingly trapped in her undercover relationship.
Interestingly enough, the story bears many similarities to Mission: Impossible 2, with the film becoming the unofficial source material for the project and sharing many plot lines with the Hitchcock classic. Both are about a government agent who is working against someone they have personal connections to, also sharing similarly treacherous car sequences, doomed central love triangles and story settings, with many narrative threads that connect both stories.
John Woo, the director of Mission: Impossible 2, has directly spoken about the influences of Notorious on the franchise, despite the fact that the writer of the film, Robert Towne, denied basing it off the film, yet acknowledged that it had been an influence, saying, “It was, I think, a clever plot device masquerading as characterization, but so what? It worked wonderfully well”. However, many have speculated that he essentially modelled the plot on the events of Hitchcock’s film and replaced the dialogue, almost existing as a scene-by-scene remake of the 1946 film.
While Towne has been shady about the film’s clear influences, later denying that they shared any similarities, it is a clear homage to Hitchcock and remains a nod to the original iterations of this genre and the director who did it best.
