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…

It's funny how as I read up on the movie afterward that I found this movie is often described as the "first James Bond movie" because when watching I literally felt the same way. Hitchcock sets up some of the common principles of the action/spy thriller in this film. Cary Grant stars in what is arguably one of the most charming onscreen personas of all time. This isn't only due to Grant, but also to one of the most cleverly written scripts I've come across in a while.

The story is wisely constructed and the dialogue is fresh, witty, & extremely humorous. In addition to the screenplay, the cinematography is up for high praise here as well. I often here people…

Part Three of Preparing (As Much As Humanly Possible) For Inherent Vice

Imagine this:

You wake up from the blackness. Like a stark wake-up call or a sudden exit from a tunnel into a bright day, the change is undoubtedly jarring. You're on a rollercoaster. You don't know how you got there or why you're on it. You look around; no other riders. You're all alone, and the coaster is reaching the top of the first hill. In the midst of all this madness, you start to smile. Slightly. You're getting anxious and excited, and as the rollercoaster drops down, it starts; the joy. The unequivocal squealing, the crazed laughter, the constant state of light tension; It's a feeling of…

There’s been a shit ton of arguments on what his best film is, and I’m sure you’ve heard it all. Vertigo. Psycho. Rear Window. Rope. The man has made masterpiece after masterpiece, time and time again, that it’s hard to pick just which picture is #1. But for this Tuesday Matinee, I’ve stamped North by Northwest as my go to - for three reasons.

1. CARY GRANT. Because, truthfully, Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart ain’t got nothing on this guy. Grant is the masterclass of master class. Smoother than butter itself. A man who did acid before acid was cool. HIs character, Roger O. Thornhill, has some of the most well-rounded attributes we’ve ever seen in a character on the…

My #2 favorite innocent man on the run movie: North by Northwest (1959), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
You could easily fill an entire list of innocent man wrongfully accused movies just using Hitchcock: The 39 Steps, Saboteur, Stage Fright, I Confess, The Wrong Man, and Frenzy all deal directly with this theme, and a few others (e.g. Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder) have elements of it. Of all of these, The 39 Steps is probably the best movie, but North by Northwest is the most fun as a pure chase picture.
Hitchcock was on such a roll in the 50' and early 60's, that even his tossed off movies feel classic. North by Northwest is substantively pure…