Movie Review: North By Northwest (1959)

In many ways Alfred Hitchcock was the greatest pioneer of technique, screenwriting and genre innovation. With Psycho (1960), he initiated the early phases of the slasher film, at least in the popular Western consciousness. With Blackmail (1929), he created the first British sound film. And with North by Northwest, he marries his skill with the camera, the pen and genre to create one of the most exciting and classic spy thrillers I have ever seen.

North by Northwest is a movie about mistaken identity. Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for FBI agent George Kaplan and taken to the residence of Lester Townsend, where he meets the villainous Philip Vandamm (James Mason). Vandamm, thinking that Thornhill is Kaplan, attempts to have him killed via a staged driving accident but Thornhill escapes. Thornhill starts investigating, which gets him into even hotter water when it looks like he has killed a U.N. diplomat. From there follows a winding story into the work of spies and deceit, as Thornhill tries to clear his name.

Ernest Lehman, nominated for six
Academy Awards, including Best
Screenplay.

The real champion of this movie is its script, which is truly a fantastic piece of work in itself. Ernest Lehman, the screenwriter, wasn't joking when he said that he wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures." There is a truly wonderful quality to this script that few screenwriters actually hit. For me, Lehman stands up amongst the great classic Hollywood screenwriters, which include Billy Wilder and Tennessee Williams. His wit is sharp and his storytelling plays out with enough twists and turns to keep you on the edge of your seat. Modern screenwriters only wish that they could write a script with this much classic Hitchcockian thrills and sarcasm.

The infamous crop duster scene, in
which Thornhill is chasedby enemy
agents.

The cinematography is also on point (as it was with most of Hitchcock's pictures). There is a real sense of urgency in the way Hitchcock uses the camera, almost as if he wants us to feel the same way as Thornhill: stressed, on edge and feeling as though you're in a situation that simply won't end. The way Hitchcock shoots action is also very unique in itself. The crop duster scene may very well be one of the most iconic action scenes in movie history. In this scene, Thornhill is chased and nearly killed by enemy agents in a crop duster. The angles Hitchcock uses in this scene paint a unique feeling to the action and keeps the audience increasingly on the edge of their seats.

Grant, who was aged 54 at the time,
brings a sort of suaveness to Thornhill
that no other actor could have pulled
off.

However, I feel that the movie mainly works because it has the right set of actors for the job: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. Nothing can go wrong with this combination. Of their time, they were three of the best actors in Hollywood. Grant was a favourite of Hitchcock's, mainly because he always did what Hitchcock told him to. Mason was a huge actor by the time the film was released, having starred in Odd Man Out (1947), Five Fingers (1952) and A Star is Born (1954). Eva Marie Saint had gotten lots of credibility as a good actress from starring in On the Waterfront (1954). And Hitchcock needed all of them to bring his movie to life. The actors all have fantastic chemistry together, particularly Saint and Grant, who I think make the relationship between Thornhill and Eve Kendall much more believable.

North by Northwest is a classic movie and I really don't think there's much more I can write that hasn't already been written. The sets are wonderful, the story is intriguing, the actors deliver powerhouse performances and the cinematography is excellent. One of Hitchcock's classic films.

FINAL VERDICT: 5/5