North by Northwest

Released: July 28, 1959

Studio: MGM

Genre: mystery/thriller/action

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 13.28 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 232.40 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Alfred Hitchcock

Screenwriting: Ernest Lehman

Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

Review:

North by Northwest is “one of the all-time great entertainments” ^LM and is “considered by many to be Hitchcock’s best picture.” ^VD It “treads a bizarre tightrope between sex and repression, nightmarish thriller and urbane comedy,” ^T95 but is also “a sly, witty satire on the shallow ethics of modern advertising man.” ^T98

“Cary Grant is truly superb” ^T95 as Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue ad executive travelling cross country from New York to Mount Rushmore. He is desperately “trying to find out what’s going on and slowly being forced to assume another man’s identity” ^T95 as he is chased “by both spies (who think he’s a double agent) and the police (who think he’s an assassin).” ^LM

The movie is marked by “one memorable scene after another,” ^LM including “Grant getting frantically chased by a machine-gun firing crop duster through a corn field.” ^VD There’s also “a literal plot-twisting cliff-hanger…and the chase across the face of Mount Rushmore.” ^FS

“Grant allegedly told Hitchcock that the script was ‘terrible’ halfway through filming and that he had no idea what was going on. Grant believed the film was going to be a bomb. Hitchcock banked on his confusion aiding his character and therefore the film.” ^MSN