Hollywood Takes On Business Travel

Cary Grant in "North by Northwest"

Image: Photograph courtesy of Everett Collection

1 of 2 NEXT

There’s a wonderful scene in Frank Capra’s holiday masterpiece, It’s a Wonderful Life, when Lionel Barrymore’s Mr. Potter tries to buy out Jimmy Stewart’s George Bailey.

The nasty, gnarly Potter offers the credulous George a big salary, the finest house in Bedford Falls, and the opportunity to do what Bailey has longed to do all his life: travel. Knowing George is desperate for a Bedford Falls exit strategy, Potter dangles business trips to New York and Europe as part of the employment package.

Every time I see Barrymore and Stewart spar, I can’t help but yell at the screen, “Don’t do it George! Don’t become a business traveler! It would be better if you were never born!”

I know that’s not what Capra was going for, but I can’t help myself. To use the vernacular of the movie, I’m just a warped, frustrated, middle-aged frequent flier. I can’t watch a flick without seeing the business-travel angle.

And since this is the one week of the year when I know that most of us are not on the road, I suggest you take the time to relax, fire up the flat screen in the living room and find the angles in my favorite business-travel movies of all time.

North by Northwest

The 1959 Hitchcock classic is best known for the remarkable scene where Cary Grant is chased through a field by a crop-duster and its dazzling climax atop Mount Rushmore. But check out the business-travel atmospherics: Grant at the Oak Bar in New York’s Plaza Hotel; Grant and Leo G. Carroll at Midway Airport, when it was Chicago’s only airport; and Grant in a battle of wits with the front-desk clerk at Chicago’s Ambassador Hotel. And don’t miss the scenes on the overnight New York-to-Chicago train. You’ll wonder why you’ve never met anyone as gorgeous as Eva Marie Saint or Cary Grant on a flight.

Only You

Seven years after he struck gold with Moonstruck, producer-director Norman Jewison tried a similar formula in Italy. The result, 1994’s Only You, is a clunker. But there’s a hilarious, if hokey, scene at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport, a nice set piece involving the concierge at the Hotel Danieli in Venice, and breathtaking scenery shot in and around Le Sirenuse Hotel in Positano on the Amalfi Coast. Watch for wonderful performances by Robert Downey Jr. and Bonnie Hunt, who steal every scene from the star, a very young Marisa Tomei. The payoff involves a no-nonsense (and previously unseen) business traveler who solves the entire dilemma of the 109-minute movie in about 30 seconds—as he’s rushing to catch a flight. That guy’s my hero.

1 of 2 NEXT