North by Northwest

The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, drew on trepidation to create his gripping films. His pacing and his ability to convey the suspense in his pictures made him legendary and his witty humour only added to the jovial intricacy of his films. With 1959’s North by Northwest, Hitchcock is possibly at his very best.

This tale of mistaken identity is a stimulating thriller, packed with the archetypal spies and mystery that make these things all the more convincing. North by Northwest was penned by Ernest Lehman, who had wanted to write the “Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.” With this film, I think he succeeded.

This film was the only film of Hitchcock’s storied career to be released by MGM and the creative differences between the director and the studio began from the start of filming and lasted throughout. MGM and Hitchcock disagreed on a number of issues, including the casting of the female lead and the editing of the film. MGM had wanted North by Northwest to be trimmed down by about 15 minutes to make it less than two hours in length. Hitchcock had absolute control over the cut through his contract, however, and refused the request. The studio also wanted Cyd Charisse for the role that Hitchcock gave to Eva Marie Saint.

Cary Grant stars as Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive working on Madison Avenue. One day Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent and whisked away by two men. He is taken to a house, where he is forced into the staging of a deadly accident. Through a wild and alarming chase sequence in which Thornhill drives drunk down careening roads, he manages to escape his quandary and land in the loving hands of the law.

He tries to explain the incident to the police, but they remain skeptical. Thornhill realizes that the only way to prove his story is to locate the man for whom he has been mistaken, so he heads off to find him. The subsequent search takes him from the United Nations, to a blonde bombshell (Saint), to a startling encounter with a crop-duster, and finally to Mount Rushmore for the film’s dramatic finale.

North by Northwest was planned as a change of pace from Vertigo, Hitchcock’s previous dark romantic thriller. The film took shape rather abnormally, as MGM had actually dispatched Hitchcock to do another film entitled The Wreck of the Mary Deare. That film was never made by Hitchcock because he had thought it to be rather lacklustre. When the film actually was released, incidentally, most people agreed that Hitchcock’s postulation was correct. North by Northwest came out as a result of writer’s block and the outright repudiation to film a tedious movie.