"Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring."

Rating: 8/10 (27 November 2014)

It's the ultimate reluctant hero story about an innocent man who is being chased all across the country by both the police who think he's a terrorist, and actual terrorists who think he's a government agent. Reluctant in finding the real agent, he goes on a quest. As the plot unravels and gets more complicated, he finds out the agent never existed (spoilers), and it was a decoy planted by the FBI. But now that he's assumed the role of the agent, he's enlisted to become the agent he was trying to prove he was not. It will make your head explode!
Cary Grant is phenomenal in the role, making quick comebacks and speaking rapidly; you would believe that someone with his personality would get in such a mess. It feels like a precursor to a James Bond movie or an Indiana Jones movie in my opinion: a suspenseful thriller that works as a comedy all rolled into one.
The screenplay, written by Ernest Lehman, keeps the viewer guessing but also provides answers in a timely fashion. For example, when things start going wrong for the protagonist near the beginning, we aren't forced to wait until the closing scenes to uncover the plot against him. Enough clues are provided early that the intelligent viewer can deduce what's going on and move to the next mystery. Such intellectual participation, always a Hitchcock hallmark, is sadly lacking in most of today's so-called "thrillers."
As is the case with many of Hitchcock's films, the director sets up his hero as the only one who knows the truth. His story is so preposterous that no one else believes him without a great deal of convincing. We, of course, sympathize with the hero immediately, because we know that he's sane and is the victim of a conspiracy - even though we don't understand what that conspiracy entails.
Of course, the hallmark of North by Northwest is the way in which Hitchcock develops tension. It only takes one introductory scene - the one with Thornhill and his secretary in a cab - for us to lend our sympathy to the hero. From that point, with a lone exception, we see things through his eyes. There is only one scene in which we are given information that the protagonist is not privy to - when the camera takes us into a government office to shed light on Thornhill's situation while adding deeper layers to the mystery. In fact, it's the complexity of Thornhill's trap and the seeming impossibility of getting out of it that builds suspense.
Hitchcock introduces strong comedic elements into this film. The result doesn't diffuse the tension, but offers an occasional break from it. For a '50s film, North by Northwest is also surprisingly forthright when it comes to sexual matters. There aren't many euphemisms or double entendres in the interaction between Thornhill and Eve.
From the brisk strains of Bernard Herrmann's opening-title fandango to its concluding gag of a honeymoon train speeding into a tunnel, North by Northwest is the apotheosis of Alfred Hitchcock's exploration of the wrong-man-pursued comic thriller and functioned in 1959 as a summary of the Master's career to date. Few films can be a showcase to the art of great film making (considered from a purely entertainment perspective). North by Northwest is one of them. I recommend renting it and watching it on as large a screen as possible