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…

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(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…

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…

I think the highest compliment I can pay this film is that it felt like I'd seen it all done before. I mean that in the very best sense. The sense that this was in many ways the first time these things had been done in a film, and have since become common place in cinema. In the 59 years since this film first released many things have changed in the world of films, but the impact that this film, and others like it, have had can still be seen today, and I think that is simply incredible. It is the same as when I recently watched 2001 Space Odyssey, it felt like to a degree I was watching the…

The great Hitchcock action film. This was probably the biggest budget film and set pieces Hitch ever worked with. Harkening back to the days of Sabotage with the hanging from Mt. Rushmore scene, this sprawling film was also Hitch's longest at the time, only to be surpassed by Topaz a decade later. More significantly, it's probably Hitch's best spy film after The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes. Both of those films were early successes in the 30's, and while he made many spy films after them, none really achieved the same level of misdirection, intrigue, and charm until North by Northwest. This film has it all - action, wit, romance, and gorgeous set pieces. There are several twists in…

7/10
In North By Northwest, a man named Roger Thornhill is mistaken to be a government agent and is framed for a whole bunch of things from car theft to murder. He goes all around the country trying to keep his head down and he finds himself on a train. There he meets a woman named Eve Kendall who says she will help him clear his name. This movie was pretty good, but I don’t think it’s as good as its reputation says it is. There are many iconic scenes and an excellent plot, but something falls flat. I think the major problem I had with this film was the lead actor, Cary Grant. He just seemed like a guy…