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Title: North by Northwest (1959)
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| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Cary Grant | ... | Roger Thornhill | |
| Eva Marie Saint | ... | Eve Kendall | |
| James Mason | ... | Phillip Vandamm | |
| Jessie Royce Landis | ... | Clara Thornhill | |
| Leo G. Carroll | ... | The Professor | |
| Josephine Hutchinson | ... | Mrs. Townsend | |
| Philip Ober | ... | Lester Townsend | |
| Martin Landau | ... | Leonard | |
| Adam Williams | ... | Valerian | |
| Edward Platt | ... | Victor Larrabee | |
| Robert Ellenstein | ... | Licht | |
| Les Tremayne | ... | Auctioneer | |
| Philip Coolidge | ... | Dr. Cross | |
 |
Patrick McVey | ... | Sergeant Flamm |
| Edward Binns | ... | Captain Junket | |
Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets a beautiful blond, Eve Kendall, who helps him to evade the authorities. His world is turned upside down yet again when he learns that Eve isn't the innocent bystander he thought she was. Not all is as it seems however, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore. Written by garykmcd
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North By Northwest is not an artistic masterpiece like Rear Window and Vertigo, but it is probably the most purely entertaining picture Hitchcock ever made. It's essentially a rehash of many of his earlier films, with a plot partially derived from The Thirty Nine Steps and the very similar Saboteur, while there are borrowings from Foreign Correspondent and Notorious, among others. However, it is all done with such style and confidence that it doesn't matter if it's essentially just a greatest hits package.
Very few other films of this kind attain the near perfect tone of this one, precariously balanced between seriousness and silliness. Sometimes this film manages the very difficult trick of being both suspenseful and comical at the same time, as in the auction house scene, or the wonderful scene in the lift when the hero's mother turns to two heavies in a lift looking menacingly at the hero and says "you gentlemen are not REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?".
Of course the famous crop dusting plane scene and the Mount Rushmore chase are terrific. The former is really more notable for the amount of time taken to build up to the action than the action itself, while the technical work on the latter still looks pretty good. In a totally different vein is the astonishingly frank seduction sequence on the train. Hitchcock takes his time here as with many of the other scenes, but the film is so crammed with memorable passages that one hardly notices it's 136 mins long.
Ernest Lehman's script is full of wonderful lines, many of them delivered so well by chief villain James Mason that at times we almost want to root for him. "Has any one ever told you tend to overplay your various roles Mr Kaplan....it seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actor's Studio". Cary Grant is so smooth one almost forgets he's over 50, and of course there's also Bernard Herrmann's vibrant score.
Endlessly enjoyable even with repeated viewings. How many of today's thrillers will be such fun in 25 years time?