North By Northwest (1959)

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

From the opening roar of the MGM lion, Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest pulls you in with composer Bernard Hermann's suspenseful score, keeping you entertained throughout the opening credits and assuring you that you are in for an evening of thrills. With names like Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, how could you be disappointed?

Rest assured, you will not be. Hitchcock keeps in line with his lighthearted air of humor in an otherwise suspenseful film when he immediately appears in one of his many famous cameos as a pedestrian who tries to catch a city bus only to have the doors shut in his face and the bus drive off.

From there you're in for more than two hours of high excitement and intrigue as we meet Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), a witty, high-powered advertising executive who, while meeting with friends at a hotel club room, is abducted by two mysterious thugs. He is taken to the house of a man ostensibly named Townsend (James Mason). Townsend believes him to be a man named Kaplan, some manner of espionage agent. During the ensuing conversation, Thornhill adamantly proclaims that he is not Kaplan, and because Townsend does not believe him, he orders his thugs to force Thornhill into becoming drunk, so they can put him in a runaway car and disguise his death as a drunk-driving accident.

This is where the film forces you to suspend your disbelief, as a drunk Thornhill manages to avoid oncoming cars as well as avoid careening over the side of a mountain road. Townsend's plans are disrupted when Thornhill is caught by a policeman and booked into the local jail.

Cary Grant plays a surprisingly likeable bachelor with only two women in his heart - his secretary and his mother. It is the relationship with his mother that really brings the character to life, because even though she is both disapproving of him and disbelieving of his current predicament, it is clear that they cannot live without one another.

When Thornhill tells his story to the judge, two detectives are sent to investigate the Townsend home, where Townsend's wife, a women neither Thornhill nor the audience has ever seen before, puts on an
act, tricking the police and Thornhill's mother that she and Townsend are friends of his, and he became drunk while attending their party the night before. She reveals that Townsend is a United Nations assemblyman and the police leave, satisfied with her story.

Thornhill and his mother go to investigate Kaplan, who he correctly deduces is staying at the hotel from which he was abducted. At the hotel, Thornhill discovers that even the hotel staff believes he is Kaplan. From the hotel he goes to the United Nation to confront Townsend and is surprised to find that the people he met in Townsend's house were actually imposters. The real Townsend not only has been away from his house, but his wife has been dead for years. Townsend is suddenly murdered, leaving Thornhill to take the rap for his murder.

It then becomes a chase movie, with Thornhill trying to discover the identity of Kaplan while being pursued by both the police and the imposter "Mr. Townsend", whose real name is Vandamm. The film is filled with enough twists and turns to keep you interested.

The film is filled with witty, snappy dialogue that is a trademark of Hitchcock, and Cary Grant as Thornhill is a remarkably likeable character. Eva Marie Saint plays a mysterious woman Thornhill meets on a train, and although she tries to be a sympathetic character, I did not find her quite as convincing as Kim Novak or Grace Kelly might have been had they been cast.

There are some great action scenes such as the crop-duster scene and the climax on Mount Rushmore.

Overall, North By Northwest is a roller coaster ride of suspense and thrills, with great performances, excellent dialogue, fast paced, and worthy of being called a classic.


Great Lines:

"Not that I mind abduction, but I have tickets to the theater this evening."


(While standing in a crowded elevator) "You're not really trying to kill my son, are you?"


"Have you poured any good drunks lately?"


"Apparently the only performance that'll satisfy you is when I play dead."

"Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you."