North By Northwest

Alfred Hitchcock, USA 1959, 136 minutes

Alfred Hitchcock. Cary Grant. Bernard Herrmann. Eva Marie Saint. What more do you need? North by Northwest is Hitchcock's tale of mistaken identity; a spy thriller with a dash of comedy and romance and a modern classic, weaving a complex plot to a dramatic conclusion.

Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a New York advertising executive who is mistaken for a US intelligence agent and duly kidnapped by a gang of foreign agents led by James Mason. He escapes the first of many attempted assasinations by the gang, the film following Grant's attempts to elude murder, find out what is going on and get the girl (and I don't mean his mother, though he's very loyal to her). The action skips from the United Nations, to a National Park via a desolate corn field and Grand Central Station. Grant skips across country as a mysterious committee comments on his fate. It is edge of the seat stuff, although typical Hitchcock tongue in fat cheek.

The suspense comes from the situations Grant finds himself in, which are seemingly impossible to escape from; the scene in the auction house, a veritable lions den, is a prime example. The suspense created by the plot is amply complemented by Bernard Herrmann's score, a modern classic. Frenetic and jumpy paranoid violins skirt around the orchestra. Romance meanwhile, is heralded by a duet of oboe and clarinet before giving way to the string section (usually accompanied by a Freudian visual joke that Hitchcock was all too fond of) and romance is very much in evidence. Eva Marie Saint proves to be both beautiful and threedimensional, as Mason's lover and Grant's desire. Both a sinner and a saint, she adds humanity to the espionage world.

Add Saul Bass's simple, effective title sequence and North By Northwest blows the socks off modern action thrillers. For suspense, romance, dark humour and impeccable acting, you can't get any better.

Review by Scott M Keir
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98