Roger and out

Rating: 9/10 (29 December 2019)

Talk about your change of pace. After making the dark, disturbing masterpiece that was "Vertigo" the year before, Hitchcock decided for his next trick to lighten proceedings with the playful and sophisticated "North By Northwest". For those who criticise the Master for only making the one type of movie, these two consecutive movies show that while ostensibly staying within the thriller genre, it's possible to extend your range and capabilities as a director without turning wholesale to period drama or sci-fi. Put it another way, they aren't two films to watch in a double feature. Which is the better of the two, well that depends on whether you prefer Mozart over Beethoven. Or do as I do and split the difference.
Just like "Vertigo", "North By Northwest" starts with a dazzling title-credits sequence, courtesy again of Saul Bass, combined with a superb theme, once again from Bernard Herrman. Then the fun really begins as we're introduced to the affable "Mad Man", Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill, a handsome, middle-aged, snazzily-dressed advertising executive, twice divorced and if truth be told, with a bit of a mother complex. By innocently raising his hand during a meeting with clients at a swank New York hotel, just when a call goes out for an individual named George Kaplan, he is immediately swept up in an espionage plot concerning the secret exporting of state secrets to an unnamed foreign Cold War power.
At the heart of these nefarious activities is the wealthy businessman Phillip Vandamm played with elan by James Mason who has in tow with him a number of besuited henchmen to do his bidding, particularly his right-hand man played with adoring devotion by Martin Landau as well as having a beautiful mistress on his arm, another classic Hitchcock blonde, this time Eva Marie Saint.
The action moves along smoothly and easily, helped by sparkling, sometimes risqué dialogue especially between Grant and Saint and incorporating some of Hitchcock's most memorable set-piece sequences, especially of course the attack on Grant in the middle of nowhere by a cropduster plane and the vertigo-inducing climax atop Mount Rushmore.
It's not only Hitchcock but all of his top-listed cast who are on top of their game here. Grant, still impossibly handsome in his mid-50s and wearing a suit better than anyone ever could, Saint sexy and sexually confident but with just an air of vulnerability in her compromised position, Mason coolly urbane, with a sinister edge and Landau as his homo-erotic bodyguard. Great also to see past Hitchcock supporting actors like Leo G. Carroll and Jesse Royce Landis on board for the ride with prominent parts.
"North by Northwest" brought Hitchcock to the end of the 50s, a decade where he had created a run of mostly outstanding features. As such it can be said to be the icing on the most sumptuous of cinematic cakes.