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A light thriller with the lightest of touch from Hitchcock, utilising the master of the craft Cary Grant, provides a fantastic entertainment from the striking Saul Bass titles at the start to the train-enters-tunnel sexual innuendo finish. Hitch was teamed with screenwriter Ernest Lehman for an unrealised project by MGM but in doing so they developed a spy story from a Hitchcock suggestion that he always wanted to film a climax to one of his movies on Mount Rushmore, after a chase from the UN building in New York. Lehman constructed a classic ‘wrong man’ confection, undoubtedly influenced by Hitch’s own The 39 Steps. Possibly sensing that the public struggled with the psychological depths of his last film, Vertigo, Hitch settles for a superficially fun spy flick, albeit with the usual Hitchcock sardonic flourishes, although he was to further test the public with his next effort, Psycho.

Part of the charm of North By Northwest is the deliberate pricking of consumerist post war America, starting with the Madison Avenue protagonist, advertising man Roger O Thornhill. His initials indicate the opinion Lehman/Hitchcock have of ad men, and If the hustle and bustle of a business that is all about ‘selling people things they don’t need’, is central to the idea then the suave superficiality of Thornhill is it’s epitome. Hitchcock seems to be saying, charm is not enough and wants to see this mettle tested when it bumps up against cold war deviousness. Thornhill is mistaken by a couple of thugs for rival spy Kaplan and is kidnapped and taken to meet the leader of the group Vandamm (James Mason). Unable to convince the spies he is not Kaplan, they set out to kill him, by filling him full of scotch (no chaser!) and putting him in a car on a winding clifftop. Some uber-mugging from Grant emphasises that Hitch is saying to tjhe audience, ‘This is a movie, relax, he’s going to get away, but then what will happen’? Theatricality and artifice are never far from the surface with Hitchcock, it’s his way of revealing reality obliquely by heightening different visual and performance elements.

Thornhill attempts to get the law onto his side but as in most ‘wrong man’ scenarios they don’t believe him and he sets out to prove his kidnap story, in doing so he’s dragged into a murder at the UN by the same villians. On the run it only remains for Hitch to weave in the inevitable blonde, this time Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who appears to be helping Roger until we discover she’s associated with Vandamm. Eve sets up Roger’s trip to the cornfield crossroads where the suave Roger is so out of place he may as well be on the moon. Hitchcock has enormous fun with building the tension and we wonder where the danger lies, only to have it come at him from a very unexpected direction, above. The cropduster scene is justly venerated and an iconic set piece, all the elements combine beautifully, Hitch’s visual wit able to bring off what must have seemed improbable on paper. Roger returns and confronts Eve, and after her place in the puzzle is revealed by a US spook he knows he’s free to follow his feelings and can now trust that hers are real as well. There is however the small matter of saving her from the villians clutches, so it’s off to Mount Rushmore for more visual extravagence,

North By Northwest is littered with throwaway gags, adding to the fun, from the O in Roger’s name ‘stands for nothing’, a sly dig at David O Selznick who Hitch was first contracted to in Hollywood, to James Mason having a crack at the Actors Studio. Vandamms’ key henchman Leonard (Martin Landau) even shows some homosexual traits when dealing with Vandamm at the end, adding an unexpected layer for a film of that era. The subversive elements are there in the pitting of vacuous American consumerist ideals against the political shadow world of the cold war, who’s values seemed to shift on a minute by minute basis, seemingly asking ‘if we’re still fighting, what are we fighting for’? In the end it’s love, for Roger the kind that will give his life some purpose, for once in his life he’s had to work hard at proving his worth, his Madison Avenue suaveness and charm not enough, and he proves himself worthy of Eve.

The look of the film is sharp and the art direction modern, Hitchcock’s taste for the surreal surfacing in the Dali like lines of the modernist house at the end, and in the visual Magritte like ‘cage of trees’ that surrounds Roger and Eve when they meet after the fake shooting. Hitch throws in some signature angular shots, the one atop the UN building as Thornhill runs out is a classic. He puts him in the tightest of situations at the end and then pulls a cinematic rabbit out of the hat to wrap the entire film within a minute. Who else would have the bombast and technical mastery to do it and not leave the audience feeling cheated? Hitch weaves a modernist, cold-war fun-fest, with a dollop of seriousness to prop it up, add in possibly the warmest of his ‘ice blondes’ and Cary Grant and it’s a heady mixture indeed. North By Northwest represents the last of his light comedy thrillers, most of his future films would be dramatic, with the odd black comedy surfacing, and maybe it was also the end of that cycle for Cary Grant, his ageless face just starting to show the odd crack, as I’m sure could be seen on the faces on Mount Rushmore up close. How fitting that those icons all share the finale here.

A light, breezy, occasionally suspenseful, romantic-thriller-comedy. There’s not a lot of depth to it (except in the rather subversive way Hitchcock reveals that there are no heroes on either side in the espionage game), but it caroms easily from brilliant oft copied set-piece to brilliant oft copied set-piece and is set a-boil by some of the most provocative of innuendo delivered with a full head of seductive steam by Eva Marie Saint. (Rest assured, gentlemen, there is time to regain your composure before the lights come up.)

The Cleveland Institute of Art’s Cinematheque was a stop for TCM’s screening of this film along with live guest appearances by Robert Osborne and Eva Marie Saint. This was my second time viewing this movie and I definitely enjoyed it more in a packed house with many Hitchcock fans. Because of people who seemed to know this classic backwards and forwards I picked up on more of the humor in the story. The thrills were quite quaint though. Still I like The 39 Steps a bit better. Cary Grant is charming as always. Eva Marie Saint is mysterious. Mason and Landau are strong villains. This is glamorous Americana with a complex espionage plot.

J’aime beaucoup Hitchcock, mais je trouve celui-ci un rien moins bon que les chefs-d’peuvre qu’il a pu nous pondre. Premièrement, si on retrouve des thèmes récurrents chez le cinéaste dans La mort aux trousses (MacGuffin, l’espionnage, etc.), je trouve quand même que ça reste très superficiel. Ensuite, je trouve Cary Grant assez peu convaincant en fin de compte. Le summum reste sans aucun doute la séquence qu’il joue en étant ivre mort. J’en ai ri. Je n’arrive pas à savoir si c’est volontaire ou non, si Hitchcock joue un peu la carte de l"humour ou non. Pour le reste, le cinéaste offre encore de remarquables séquences (le personnage de Grant poursuivi par l’avion dans les champs agricoles ou encore le Mont Rushmore) et une histoire qui reste somme toute attractive.

Hay muchas frases para describir las experiencias que se viven al ver y apreciar una película, recuerdo la primera vez que vi Los Pájaros (1963) de Alfred Hitchcock, tenía entre ocho y diez años, la película me impresionó pero no sentí terror, sino curiosidad y suspenso ante lo que veía.

North by Northwest (1959) es un claro ejemplo del cine que disfruto y que el señor Hitchcock se regodeaba haciendo, entretenimiento puro y sin mayores pretensiones que contar una historia manteniendo a la concurrencia al filo de sus butacas.

Como en todas las películas de Hitchcock podemos encontrar paralelismos y conexiones. Empezando por la actriz rubia, en este caso Eva Marie Saint, que al igual que en las demás cintas es parte medular y punto central del desarrollo del guión.

La acción no se detiene desde que terminan los títulos, el publicista Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) se ve envuelto en una secuencia de imprevistos que lo llevarán a estar en un permanente estado de fuga.

Los efectos especiales utilizados durante los 131 minutos de duración son increíbles, aunque, quizá hoy en día ya no resulten tan apantallantes como en el estreno de la cinta. El paso del tiempo ha dejado atrás muchas de las técnicas usadas por el director, hoy en día una computadora y una pantalla azul son todo lo que necesitas para impresionar al público y si es en 3D ya estás del otro lado.

No es gratuito que uno de los personajes claves del cine en todo el mundo sea Hitchcock, la construcción de sus películas presentaba historias con varios “giros de tuerca”, que provocaban en los espectadores interés.

En Intriga internacional el personaje central es un hombre cualquiera que se sumerge en una red de mentiras, todo enmarcado por la Guerra Fría, donde cualquiera puede ser un aliado o tú peor enemigo. Esto es lo que provoca identidad, todos en cierto grado somos sospechosistas (así dicen en mi tierra), recelamos del lugar donde vivimos y de la gente que nos rodea, no podemos evitarlo somos seres humanos, recuerden Rear Window (1954).

Otra característica importante del filme es el uso de grandes sets en los cuales se desarrolla la acción, el principal simula una escalada en el Monte Rushmore (donde están las caritas de los presidentes) y esa es otra de las claves que guarda la filmografía de Hitchcock, logró ser un autor a pesar de someterse a los grandes presupuestos del sistema de estudios, que no es poca cosa.

Uno de los puntos más cuestionados de la cinta es el guión, aunque también es una de sus fortalezas. Ambivalencia pura, debido a lo común que resulta la historia, un inocente es acusado de algún acto que no cometió, es la misma trama de otras tantas películas de Hitchcock; El hombre que sabía demasiado (1934) y Los 39 escalones (1935) son los ejemplos más claros.

Pero sincerémonos un poco, a todos nos emociona Alfred Hitchcock, no por nada es el maestro del suspenso.

Imitado jamás igualado.

This is just about as much fun as cinema gets. Charming likable hero who we love watching and whose success(romantic and otherwise) we yearn for. Glamorous leading lady who is an object of desire and mystery but who is also a good gal deep down. Villains who are scary but who have a certain air of cool about them. NORTH BY NORTHWEST invented James Bond, Indiana Jones and countless other romantic comedies and glamorous spy thrillers.

Aside from being a great entertainer fun film, NORTH BY NORTHWEST has a delicious surreal quality to it. It’s plot is intricate to the point of absurdity. The film’s opening credits(by Saul Bass, naturellement) begins with lines criss crossing to settle into a pattern of glass window panes on a sky-scraper. The film is about a middle-class man’s well ordered world collapsing with everything that he has taken for granted turning against him. It’s a key film about the 50s articulating the fantasies and the confinement of that period.

The key line is when Roger O. Thornhill(the O is in hommage to David O. Selznick) picks up a phone and tries to convince his pursuer that he is in fact not George Kaplan…his pursuer says, “You live in his room, you wear his clothes, you answer his phone and you say you are not him.” This anticipates Antonioni’s THE PASSENGER which is an art-film take on this movie’s themes.