When Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a secret agent, and then blamed for a political assassination, he has to go on the run to track down the mysterious 'George Kaplan', the man he has been mistaken for.
As he flees across country, he becomes entangled in a widening web of conspiracy involving a beautiful blonde (Eva Marie Saint) and a team of killers led by an urbane Englishman (James Mason).
Man, I took way too long to watch this movie.
I was a big Hitchcock fan when I was younger, but I got interested in other filmmakers and North by Northwest fell by the wayside.
I watched this movie after Saboteur, and it was like going from the Wright Brothers' plane to a supersonic jet.
From the opening notes of Bernard Herrmann’s score, I knew we were in good hands. The movie moves so seamlessly into the caper so quickly, I wanted to clap.
Made almost two decades after Saboteur, and after assembling the team that would be the source of his greatest successes, Hitchcock’s final and most successful ‘Man on the run’ thriller is a joy from beginning to end.
It is so well paced and moves so fast that you never worry about contrivances or logic gaps. I recently watched a webinar where James Cameron was the guest, and he made a great point about logic in screenwriting. You need to treat it like a lawyer in court: only ask the questions that you want answered.
North by Northwest is never concerned with realism, and it is all the better for it. All that matters is that Thornhill's reactions and choices make sense. If you can track the characters, and they remain consistent, nothing else matters and anything is possible.
The villains' plot ends up being about a MacGuffin that is purely designed to give the characters to chase after, and by the end that little item is completely secondary to our protagonists rescuing each other. I have run into a couple of movies recently that have bungled their macguffins so badly, it really sets in relief how they need to be employed - a big culprit is Mission: Impossible III, a film which teases out its MacGuffin for so long that you fixate on what it actually is (which says something about how underwhelming the other aspects of the movie are).
While the movie is pure popcorn, North By Northwest has fully-developed characters who form the spine of the movie. The MacGuffin and the broader conspiracy do not merit much attention, only in terms of the pressure that it places on Thornhill and his romantic love interest, the mysterious blonde Eve, played by Eva Marie Saint.
The central couple in Saboteur feel like pieces on a board moving from set piece to set piece, North by Northwest's script (by Ernst Lehman) keeps the focus on Thornhill's motivation to clear his name, and his burgeoning relationship with the mysterious Eve. With sharp repartee and strong chemistry between the leads, this is a couple that feel equally matched.
Grant is on terrific form as a shallow man who is forced to become a part of something important. Saint matches him as the whip-smart and conflicted Eve, while James Mason is the best Bond villain that never was as the smooth Vandamm.
As a James Bond fan, I have always been aware of the connections to Hitchcock's work. Watching North by Northwest cemented the connection - the long running series feels like a continuation of Hitch's man-on-the-run thrillers, with the glossy North by Northwest, with its location hopping, sexual innuendo and set pieces, as the bridge between the two. Fundamentally the two are very different, and a big reason is that Thornhill, despite his charm and suits, is an everyman. He never comes across as someone who is going to win, and watching Grant figure out how to outfox his opponents gives the film an excitement that the Bond series rarely reaches for.
The set pieces have been dissected for decades, so I will not spend too much time on them. I will just add to the chorus of 'They are great!'. What stuck with me was how funny the movie was - Thornhill's confused interactions after being kidnapped; Thornhill's relationship with his mother; even Thornhill's expression in the newspaper photo when he is holding the knife at the UN is hilarious.
Well-paced, suspenseful and hilarious, North by Northwest is a timeless good time. If you have not watched it, do.
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