North by Northwest (1959)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Film Review

North by Northwest is regarded by many as the very quintessence of a Hitchcock film - a delirious concoction of mystery, suspense, action and romance, elevated to an operatic scale and served with a bumper side-order of the director's trademark black humour. It may not have the depth and sophistication of Hitchcock's true masterpieces, but it is his biggest crowd-pleaser, and is just as enjoyable to watch today as when it was first released in 1959.  If you're in the mood for a cracking good spy thriller and you're sick of Sean Connery and the bikini brigade, the likelihood is that this is what you will be feeding into your DVD player in eager anticipation.

The plot is a familiar Kafkaesque set up in which an ordinary man falls victim to a case of mistaken identity and finds himself caught up in a life and death struggle against unseen enemies, not knowing who, if anyone, can be trusted - a bit like how you feel when filling in that slightly overdue income tax return.   This same scenario has formed the basis of many Hitchcock films, most notably The 39 Steps (1935) and Saboteur (1942) but somehow the director manages to give it a different slant, making it appear fresh and exciting.  Indeed, there are places where North by Northwest looks suspiciously like cheeky parody of The 39 Steps, although this is belied by its very high thrill quotient.

Here we see the immaculately coiffeured Cary Grant, at the time one of Hollywood's most highly paid actors, in his most celebrated role; he had previously appeared in two other Hitchcock films: Notorious (1946) and To Catch a Thief (1955).  Playing opposite him is the exquisite Eva Marie Saint, who dazzles as the perfect incarnation of the ambiguous Hitchcockian heroine - beautiful, mysterious and possibly quite deadly. The actress is perhaps most famous for her part opposite Marlon Brando in Elia Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954).

James Mason and Martin Landau get to play the two villains, the effortless velvety charm of the former making an effective contrast with the repressed psychosis of the latter.  There is just the suggestion of homoerotic tension , hinting that the relationship between the two characters may have a much darker side than we see portrayed on screen.  Jessie Royce Landis plays another staple of the Hitchcock movie - the domineering mother.  Landis and Grant were about the same age, and this adds a strange Oedipal dimension to the mother-son relationship of their characters - perhaps a presage of what was to come in Hitchcock's next film...

North by Northwest originated when Alfred Hitchcock and screenwriter Ernest Lehman were working on an adaptation of Hammond Innes' novel The Wreck of the Mary Deare.   Unable to make any progress on the script, the two men developed ideas for a another film in which Hitchcock envisaged a climactic chase down the Mount Rushmore monument.  What Lehman wanted was to make "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures"; he pretty well succeeded.

The film's intriguing title is often cited as coming from a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet - "I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly.  I know a hawk from a handsaw." - the inference being that Hamlet, and hence the character played by Cary Grant, is not mad.  However, this connection is apparently coincidental, since it is believed that film's title originally referred to the geographic direction in which the story progresses across North America.

North by Northwest is of course famous for the stunningly realised sequence in which Cary Grant is pursued by a crop duster biplane - the most ambitious and iconic adventure sequence in any Hitchcock film.  Almost as memorable is the final action scene on the Mount Rushmore monument, which is reminiscent of the thrilling denouement to Saboteur, but done on a much greater scale.  Another unforgettable feature of this film is Bernard Herrmann's score, which brilliantly serves the breakneck pace and epic scale of the film, whilst also evoking the romance, chilling paranoia and mischievous humour that form such an essential part Alfred Hitchcock's deliciously warped world.

Film Synopsis

Life for advertising executive Roger Thornhill suddenly gets a little complicated on the day he is mistaken for a Federal agent named George Kaplan.  One minute he is having a civilised lunch with his mother; the next he is being bundled into a car by henchmen in the employ of an enemy agent.  No sooner has Thornhill managed to thwart the murderous intentions of his abductors than he finds himself implicated in the killing of a United Nations diplomat.  At a time like this, when everyone seems to have it in for you, there is just one thing a man can do.   Run!