North by Northwest

Review:

Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), an advertising executive from New York, finds himself the victim of mistaken identity when a mysterious group of foreign spies mistake him for an undercover CIA agent, George Kaplan. He soon finds himself framed for murder, hunted by both the police and the spy ring, and on the run across the United States. His only hope is to find the mysterious George Kaplan and expose the spy ring.

The film takes us from one iconic American location to another: from the United Nations building in New York; to the corn fields of Illinois; and lastly to a unforgettable finale on the side of Mount Rushmore.

Cary Grant was one of the greatest actors of his generation and puts in one of his best performances here. He portrays Roger Thornhill as a sauve James-Bond-like character but with a playfulness that brings a lot of the fun to the film. Eva Marie Saint is also outstanding as Eve Kendall, the love interest who seems to be far more involved in events than it would at first appear.

The film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho; Rear Window; Vertigo) and is one of the most famous in his resume. Hitchcock understood that a film's primary purpose was to entertain. This sense of fun and excitement can be seen in all of his films but none more so than North by Northwest. Containing several of the most iconic scenes in American cinema, North by Northwest is not to be missed.

George Marshall