North by Northwest (1959)

 

There's little denying the genius of Alfred Hitchcock and his absolute mastery of the entertaining thriller. Heck, his filmography alone will attest to that statement. But perhaps one of his most accomplished works might be this one. Is it as tense as 'Psycho' or as disturbing as 'The Birds'? No. Is it as big a mystery as 'Vertigo'? Again: no. But what this one does better than most is meld all of those different takes into one cohesive story, giving us one of the funniest thrillers ever made.

That has to count for something, right?

Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, an executive of a firm that is a bit of a blowhard who still dotes on his mother. During a lunch meeting, he is mistaken for a man named Roger Kaplan and kidnapped. He is then brought to a mansion where he tries to convince the people there that he is not this Kaplan, to no avail. They fill him up with booze and then want him to have a car accident, but through sheer luck he survives. Things only get stranger, as he is determined to set the record straight, but in doing so inadvertently ends up entangled in a hunt for a man called Vandamm, who is a foreign spy. Eventually, Thornhill does assume the guise of this Kaplan to get some answers and he gets ever deeper into a web of espionage and violence...

This film wouldn't work without Cary Grant. It's in fact very hard to imagine anyone else in the role of Roger Thornhill, as Grant has this immense repository of charm that makes him likable, even if he starts off as a bit of a douche. His comedic timing and facial expressions make for a lot of the funnier moments and it feels good to have some light-hearted touches strewn throughout. But the main cast is excellent across the board. Eva Mary Saint is an interesting damsel-in-distress, who is less in distress than might appear. Also, it's hard to fault both James Mason and Martin Landau as the bad guys. Mason has that suave energy that makes him a perfect callous evildoer, and Martin Landau is revelling in the henchman role.

And the setpieces, oh my! The drunken descent of the seaside road, the finale atop Mount Rushmore and of course who could forget the chase that is thé image of this film: Cary Grant hunted in broad daylight across empty fields by a biplane? 

Good stuff.

There's a very good reason 'North by Northwest' is considered such a classic. But don't just take my word for it: go and enjoy it yourself.