I happen to be writing this on board ship, in a little café, at a table by the window, with an idle eye on any glamorous women passing by. And as always in such settings I think of North by Northwest, which contains the all-time great strangers-on-a-train/ships-in-the-night scene. In a lifetime’s travel, everyone should have a North by Northwest moment: on the Twentieth Century train to Chicago, Cary Grant walks into a crowded dining car and is seated opposite Eva Marie Saint, the coolest of cool blondes. The conversation starts out quietly smouldering and heats up from there:
He: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.She: What makes you think you have to conceal it?He: She might find the idea objectionable.She: Then again, she might not…He: Is that a proposition?She: I never discuss love on an empty stomach.He:
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