100

(35mm)

North by Northwest is famous because of one scene. Now, that doesn't mean the rest of it is lacking, as it should be common knowledge of its solidified place in the canon of the greatest American films in the history of the cinema, but the zenith is found in a classic Hitchcock concept: the image of the pursuer and the pursued. Its famous sequence of a crop-duster aircraft leaping towards Cary Grant's Roger O. Thornhill in the Midwest countryside - bullets flying near his dives for survival - is constructed through the context of a world unknown: a place not designed for your color or creed or gender or social status. It is an environment, depicted via the…

Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest features a spellbinding first half which makes terrific use of clever humour, elevated tension & elements of mystery or suspense but is unfortunately marred by a lacklustre second half which bogs the story down with a dragged narrative & feels quite overlong in the end although it does have one spectacular sequence that'll be etched in memory once it's seen.

One of the first films to lay down the foundation of modern action thrillers in Hollywood, North by Northwest is a thrilling tale of mistaken identity which concerns an innocent advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent by an organisation of foreign spies & is pursued by them. The story covers his journey of survival as…

Part of Dastardly Difficult December: film nr.68

A benchmark in the action/adventure genre, crafted by one of cinema's masters.

I remembered next no to nothing from this film, apart from its iconic final sequence. It is therefore that I'm still reeling from being transported 50 years back and being swept along on this tale of mistaken identity, romance and espionage.

Hitchcock is of course know as the master of suspense, yet this is perhaps his least suspenseful film. It is, on the other hand, a very exciting adventure filled with the easy charm, class and simplicity of days gone by. I love the fact that practically from the get go, Hitchcock gives us one up on his protagonist. He understands…

Horizontal meets vertical as the title and crisscrossing credits propose. Cary Grant commits the greatest of horizontal acts (swiping into a cab) and tells the man a lie he's a hero for his immobility. The rest of the film turns a cosmic joke on the star as he runs from East to West in the identity of a man of a shorter suit. The camera arcs in a circular dance as he faces James Mason, the short stature man pulling his weight through lean Martin Laundau, who pours a tall bottle into Grant. "It's so horribly sad...why is it I feel like laughing?" an agent exclaims after a top down shot against the UN makes Grant a small dot in…

A slanted mess of a film, a semi-coherent paper-mache of cool locations and scenes that was so obviously patchworked together; you can tell Hitchcock was really looking for a change of pace with this. Cary Grant is a wisecracking ad man who's mistaken for 'George Kaplan' and brought to mansion, drugged, and murdered. Or, rather, attempted murder, because Grant manages to drunk drive himself out of the bad guy's clutches and into a car crash with a cop. Punished with an unspeakable $2 fine, Grant sets out to clear his name by proving the existence of the men who tried to kill him.

What comes after is basically the light and optimistic version of Burn After Reading (I couldn't help…

(8.7/10)

[Thornhill is wearing sunglasses to hide his identity] 
Ticket Seller: Something wrong with your eyes? 
Roger Thornhill: Yes, they're sensitive to questions.

As a sucker for chase movies (The Fugitive is one of my favorite movies ever), I was skeptical of the idea that I would love North by Northwest. But how could I ever doubt Hitchcock. 

This film is one of the most frustrating pictures I’ve ever seen. There are so many instances where I thought I found a plot hole which kind of took me out of the movie, only for those “holes” to be puzzle pieces which came together when the film explained its numerous twists. That being said, the plot is very articulate and complex…