North by Northwest (1959)

 North by Northwest (1959)

 

8/10

Starring

Cary Grant
Eva Marie Saint
James Mason
Jessie Royce Landis

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

North by Northwest is an Alfred Hitchcock movie filled with twists and turns and counter-twists. If you’re not paying close attention, you’ll miss it all. It’s known as one of his best mysteries.

This classic 1959 American thriller was directed by Hitchcock himself. It was originally set to star James Stewart (Vertigo, Rear Window) as Thornhill, but as Hitchcock developed the script, he decided Thornhill was more of a Cary Grant type.

The movie is based on a sixty-page write-up by a journalist named Guernsey. Hitchcock bought the write-up for $10,000. He and Ernest Lehman worked on the script, and Lehman went on to develop the screenplay.

What’s exceptional about this movie is that you never know what’s coming next. It keeps you guessing and wanting to see how it ends.

The plot centres on a man named George Kaplan. Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for Kaplan, and because of that, he’s almost killed and spends a night in jail.

Things get worse when Roger can’t convince the police that he was kidnapped, drugged, and nearly killed. It doesn’t get any better when he becomes a murder suspect for stabbing a man at the UN.

Now Roger has to prove his innocence and save the woman he loves.

This movie is known for iconic scenes, one being the crop-dusting scene where a Naval Aircraft Factory N3N Canary chases Thornhill. That scene was named the best of all time in the August 2009 issue of Empire magazine’s "1001 Greatest Movie Moments."

The other famous scene is the shoutout on Mount Rushmore at the film’s end, which was filmed on a replica.

Now as fantastic as the other cast members were, I question the casting of Cary Grant, I felt he could have done better. Also, the movie was a bit too long for me and the plot, although fine by the second act, became a bit too twisted and just unrealistic for me to be fully engaged with what was happening. 

The movie also introduced new trends. Fashion experts at the 2006 GQ rated the gray suit Cary Grant wears throughout almost the entire film as the best suit in film history and the most influential on men’s style.

The movie ranks fourth in AFI’s 100 Years... 100 Thrills, behind Psycho (1960), Jaws (1975), and The Exorcist (1973). North by Northwest was nominated for three Academy Awards—for Film Editing, Art Direction, and Original Screenplay (Ernest Lehman)—but lost them all to Ben Hur.

This is a solid mystery, and one you will enjoy.