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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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…

Although I wouldn't personally consider this one of Hitchcock's best as it combines being quite frivolous with being a little overlong, it is for the most part a very entertaining adventure movie.
The film stars Cary Grant (immediately inviting comparison to the superior Charade) as an advertising executive mistaken for a spy and dragged out of his day to day life into a convoluted thriller plot, hunted by the police, a mysterious criminal mastermind played by James Mason and a prototype Bond girl played by Eva Marie Saint.
Grant and Mason are playing well within type and each deliver some good moments, and Saint is pretty fun as a scandalously businesslike seductress. It's rare that the matte paintings are noticeable…