North by Northwest (1959)

North by Northwest is famous for its famous action sequences such as hanging on Mount Rushmore and the crop duster plane scene. Essentially it is a film of mistaken identity as advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for George Kaplan by some bad guys in league with a foreign power presumably Russian. The trouble is Kaplan is a made up operative created by the CIA to flush out the film's villain, the urbane but deadly Vandamm (James Mason) and his cronies such as the fey henchman Leonard (Martin Landau) who are out to get Thornhill. Thornhill in order to prove his innocence must evade capture from the bad guys and also the police as he is wanted by everyone. Only a beautiful blonde Eve (Eva-Marie Saint) aids him in this cross country chase but she is more than an innocent bystander as she might be in league with Vandamm. This is an escapist action film that mixes tension with some comedy and Grant was always adept with light comedy. The film is overlong, it just feels 15 minutes too long and the villains motives seems to be rather cloudy.

I hate user/critic review websites strictly because of movies like this. People will go see like, Gran Torino, be entertained, admire a couple symmetrical shots and smooth camera pans or whatever, and rate the thing a 4.5/5, 9/10, 95%, etc. But then there are movies that have a ten minute chase scene with Cary Grant scaling down Mount Rushmore, every second of which you're screaming at the screen. Of course my most pompous entry is for an Alfred Hitchcock. But please, for progeny's sake, save the high ratings for ones that earn em

Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms. Roger O Thornhill is a harmless and amiable advertising executive who is absurdly mistaken for a government agent by a gang of ruthless spies. Forced to go out on the lam, Thornhill lurches from one perilous scenario to another. Can he survive to prove his innocence? Is the gorgeous blonde who is helping him really a friend? All will be revealed in Alfred Hitchcock's majestic thriller. If deconstructing it you find that this isn't a perfect Hitchcock movie, for it under uses James Mason's coolly vile Phillip Vandamm (which is a crime), and it also doesn't have a female lead acting with any great urgency since Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall fails to fully fulfil the promise of Kendall's arrival in the movie. Yet this film rightly earns the right to be on any critics top 100 list, to be a favourite amongst the legion of Hitchcock fans (of which I'm one of that number), for it is escapist entertainment in its purest form, Hitchcock's most accessible popcorn entertainment piece. From the moment at the film's opening when you hear Bernard Herrmann's wonderful music, it's enough to send goose pimples all over the body. For it is a musical portent that signifies we are about to get a fusion of thrills, mystery, and some cheeky Hitchcock humour, accompanied by heroes and villains all condensed purely for our enjoyment. Fronted by a diamond Cary Grant performance as the man wrongly mistaken for another that leads to him being pursued frighteningly across the states, the pic is never found wanting for genre high points. Coming as it did after the darkly brilliant and soul sapping Vertigo, Hitchcock clearly wanted to hang loose and enjoy himself. Working from a fabulous script by Ernest Lehman, North By Northwest's very reason for being is purely to entertain those wanting to invest a frame of mind with it, with Hitchcock cunningly putting us on side with what is ultimately a shallow character in Grant's Roger O (the O doesn't stand for anything) Thornhill. It's a neat trick from the master of trickery and devilment. Some of the scenes on show are now almost folk lore such is the esteem in which they are held by movie fans and makers alike. A crop dusting aeroplane attack (the prelude to which has those goose pimples popping up in anticipation), a pursuit on Mount Rushmore and the often forgotten drunk car on a cliff sequence, these are all trade mark pieces of work from Hitchcock. North By Northwest is in my humble opinion one of the true greats of cinema history, where as bleak and as unnervingly brilliant as Vertigo was the previous year, this is the polar opposite in structure and fable, but the result is most definitely equally as great. One of the reasons I fell in love with cinema in fact. 10/10

***It has its points of interest, but any 60’s Bond flick is a better choice*** When an ad executive in Manhattan (Gary Cooper) is mistaken for a government agent by a foreign spy & his cronies (James Mason, et al.) he finds himself a fugitive traveling by train to Chicago wherein he meets a woman that seems to have his favor (Eva Marie Saint). After a curious encounter with a crop dusting plane everything culminates at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota. "North by Northwest" (1959) is an adventure/thriller by Hitchcock with a huge reputation. It obviously influenced the James Bond flicks of the 60s, which started three years later with “Dr. No” (1962), but it’s very toned down by comparison because the hero in this case is not a trained spy. It’s entertaining to a point, but also seriously overrated due to some glaring problems… Jessie Royce Landis plays the protagonist’s mother when she was only a little over 7 years older than Cooper and it’s too obvious; the story drags too much at this point (when he’s hanging out with his mother); his chance meeting with a key character on the train (Saint) is too coincidental; their make-out sessions are premature, unconvincing and painfully dull; what happens to the plane is stupefying; the crop dusting encounter supposedly takes place in rural Indiana when it’s clear that it’s nowhere within a thousand miles of Indiana (actually it was shot at the southern end of Central Valley, California, outside of Bakersfield); speaking of which, the geography is too noticeably disingenuous: e.g. during the drunk driving episode there are no cliffs like that on Long Island (it was actually shot at Potrero Valley, Thousand Oaks, CA, and obviously so). Still, there’s enough good here to enjoy if you favor Hitchcock & the cast and don’t mind quaint movies. The film runs 2 hours, 15 minutes (unnecessarily overlong). GRADE: B-/C+

Not one time did I think “This is good enough to deserve being on his (Hitchcock’s) filmography.

Not one time did I think “This is good enough to deserve being on his (Hitchcock’s) filmography.

"Thornhill" (Cary Grant) is your typically fast-talking advertising executive who is meeting some folks for a drink when he is mistaken for a "Mr. Caplan". Whisked off at gunpoint to meet "Vandamm" (James Mason) and his henchman "Leonard" (Martin Landau) his protestations of innocence just get him pumped full of booze and put behind the wheel of a car, the likely suspect of a murder investigation. He has to stay one step ahead of the pursuing police now as he tries to get his life back, a task made more difficult by his encounter with the charmingly enigmatic "Eve" (a rather static Eva Marie Saint) whom he is not entirely sure he can trust. What Hitchcock delivers now is a slowly unravelling adventure mystery with loads of red herrings, plenty of well written and executed humour from Grant and a gradually accruing sense of menace as we finally realise just what is going on. The photography is intimate one moment, all-encompassing the next, the crop dusting scene is the stuff of cinema legend and I challenge any non-American to name the fourth bloke atop Mount Rushmore at the end. To be fair, that denouement wasn't my favourite - it's a bit rushed and rather convenient, but this is still a stylishly produced thriller, with an exciting score from Bernard Herrmann that still stands the test of time.

Seen this one a few times over the years and still is one of Hitchcock's best though personally Rear Window is still my favorite of his. Still, a great espionage thriller with solid performances from both Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. **4.5/5**