BA_Harrison North by Northwest is a breezy espionage thriller, much lighter in tone than Hitchcock's later cold war spy movies, Topaz and Torn Curtain, and a whole lot more enjoyable as a result. Cary Grant plays Madison Avenue advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill, who is abducted by ruthless spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and his cohorts, who have mistaken him for an FBI agent named George Kaplan. Unable to convince the enemy of his real identity, Roger escapes and goes on the run to look for the real Kaplan, aided by a beautiful, mysterious blonde Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint).The action moves along at a brisk pace, with charismatic lead Grant making for a likeable protagonist and Hitchcock delivering a couple of his most iconic scenes-the crop duster attack and the finalé on Mount Rushmore-both of which are excellent. It's not all perfection-the moment where Thornhill is framed for murder is laughable, the poor sap grabbing the knife buried in a man's back and then turning towards a news photographer who just happens to have his camera at the ready-but for a couple of hours of pure escapism, North by Northwest is a good way to go.

livinglifing Why do old movies need to be automatically classic just because they are old? This movie is horrible...period. The acting is bad...the story is unbelievable, in the literal sense...the production value weak. Hitchcock and Grant are given much too much credit...both are sub-par entertainers. A critics movie for sure and a waste of time for anyone under 50...

robert-temple-1 This film is probably where Hitchcock's genius rose to its greatest height. I have seen it several times over the years, and it keeps getting better and better. Now we have a Blu-ray remastered version, so I have seen it again, all crisp and new. A large part of the success of this film is due to Ernest Lehman, who wrote the screenplay. He was one of Hollywood's top screenwriters and his skills were crucial in making this story work. The film is gripping from the first scene to the last, and never loses its tension for a moment. Cary Grant's somewhat weird personality was perfect for the lead role in this tale of mysterious intrigue. The combination of his droll insouciance and dry humour with his expressions of continually surprised astonishment is just the right mix. I can't think of any other actor who could so perfectly have compounded the variegated tinctures of ambiguity into this sublime decoction of suspense. (What do you mean, that last sentence was affected?) As for Eva Marie Saint, never was she so glorious as in this picture. She has just the right mix as well. And those two mixes went well together, and are the very opposite of oil and water. Or to put it another way, everything gells. And then there is James Mason as the unctuous smoothie bad guy. He really knew how to be convincing at that, and the way he puts his hand on Eva Marie Saint's shoulder in the auction room, to say 'you are mine', is done so delicately but so emphatically. He was always the master of understatement, Every gesture, every grimace is perfectly planned and plotted. Hitchcock was passionate about story-boarding all his films, and this one is a living story-board. Not one thing is out of place, the film was perfectly executed according to plan. It ticks better than any Swiss watch in history. Tick, tick, tick, and the wheels go round and things happen relentlessly, all precisely timed. The most famous episode in this film is probably when Cary Grant gets off a bus in the middle of a corn field in absolutely nowhere and a crop-spraying plane comes after him, trying to kill him. Who says such things never happen? I saw it with my own eyes, in a Hitchcock film, so it must be true.

V B I've finally come to realise just how great North by Northwest is. The reason you should love Hitchcock is he put entertainment upfront. Hitchcock was not interested in whether this or that would happen in real life: he was interested in what would make the most entertaining scene for the movie. North by Northwest is a peak in this regard. The dialogue and situations intentionally throw reality to the wind - the double-entendre dialogue in the love scenes is not supposed to be the way people talk!If you said to Hitchcock "as if he'd keep driving" or "as if she'd do that"he would just laugh at you and say you've missed the point. This is 100% movieland, and once you get used to the fact, and that this is not a fault in the film, but done intentionally, you'll love it. Its expressionistic - everything happens in movie language: the people laughing at Grant in the elevator, the way he keeps driving drunk near the beginning, the way he grabs the knife and everyone stares at him after someone's been stabbed.It flirts with the idea of identity. I thought it was interesting how Grant first is dismissing, then incredulous that people should be calling him by another name; then, as the tries to find out who this guy is, he enters the hotel room of this new identity, then he puts the suit on, and finally he identifies himself as George Kaplan.A succession of fantastic, memorable scenes, a great leading man in Grant, and one of Hermann's essential Hitch scores make for a movie i can put on at any time.10/10