North by Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock’s

North by Northwest

Certificate: PG Running time 131 minutes

Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense rarely made a dull film. One of the constant themes of his films was the reaction of ordinary people who fall victim to threatening circumstances. We see this in The Birds, The Man who Knew too much, Rear Window, Foreign Correspondent and most notably in this exciting comedy thriller, North by Northwest.

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is the victim of mistaken identity. He’s really a shallow advertising executive under his mother’s thumb but he finds himself accosted by a group of burly thugs. They drive him to a magnificent mansion to meet the urbane Lester Townsend (James Mason at his oiliest) a foreign spy who believes him to be an FBI agent called George Kaplan.

Thornhill escapes from a murder bid made to look like an drink-driving car accident. He is unable to convince the police that he’s not a drunk telling lies to save his own skin. He goes to the United Nations building to confront Townsend, only to discover that the real Lester Townsend is not the man who tried to have him killed. Worse still, the real Townsend is stabbed to death in front of him. Thornhill picks up the bloody knife. He looks guilty. He goes on the run from the police and from the killers.

On a train he meets up with the glamorous Eve Kendall ( Eva Marie Saint) who at first helps him to escape from the police but whose true motives are open to question. This leads him to his famous encounter with a crop-duster and a spectacular dénouement on Mount Rushmore.

The story goes that Hitchcock deliberately kept the whole plot from the cast. He wanted them to seem totally bewildered and uncertain about what would happen next. Grant in particular carries the air of someone feeling ‘Oh my goodness, what’s happening to me?’ In this he is supported well by Eva Marie Saint as the mysterious blonde femme fatale and by James Mason in a scene-stealing role as the oily villain Philip Van Damm. A perfect plot from a perfect cast. This film still enthralls with its thrills, chases and humour. The widescreen Warner Brothers DVD release bundles in a 39 minute behind the scenes film of the making of the movie, together with an audio commentary by the screenwriter Ernest Lehman and a selection of trailers.