Good thriller

Rating: 6/10 (15 September 2008)

The addition of pretense can be a killer in a film. It is precisely the lack of such a quality that makes Alfred Hitchcock's two and a quarter hour long 1959 color thriller North By Northwest a better and more enjoyable film than his preceding film, Vertigo, even if the film comes nowhere near the excellence of his following film, Psycho. Whereas the two films that end in o attempt to impose a deeper psychology into their screenplays, North By Northwest is a popcorn eaters gala pre-James Bondian Cold War thriller. It's no wonder the film was a popular smash while Vertigo was a financial flop.
On a strictly logical level, little of the film makes much sense, but it's Hitchcock, after all. As example, what is contained on the microfilm that is the film's MacGuffin- inside the statuette, is meaningless and beside the point- which is action and thrills. That there is no logical reason for Cary Grant's character, Roger Thornhill- another Hitchcockian wrongly accused man, a Madison Avenue advertising executive, to be mistaken for the non-existent spy George Kaplan, is another problem. Yet, even though it is done in a rather unconvincing fashion- Thornhill summons a hotel attendant who is paging Kaplan, and the chase is on- few people will debate cause and effect in a film like this. The dopey bad guys see this brief moment and assume everything- a perfect example of the dumbest possible action propelling the plot, which is usually an artistic killer. However, on the plus side, this is one of Cary Grant's best and Cary Grantiest roles. He is charming, delightful, suave, and the fact that he never seems to get a hair out of place in assorted acts of derring-do, even when chased and dusted by that crop duster, in one of the film's most famed scenes, is not a problem, unless one just cannot let the formula silliness wash over them.
On the negative side is the performance of Eva Marie Saint, as Eve Kendall- the lover/counterspy of James Mason's Soviet mole character, Phillip Vandamm. Saint is stiff and wooden, and even less convincing as a romantic lead than many of the other icy blonds that inhabit the Hitchcock universe. Yes, she's beautiful; second perhaps only to Grace Kelly in the Hitchcockian blond goddess pantheon, but she has absolutely no chemistry with Grant. Technically, the film holds up much better than many of Hitchcock's other efforts, for the process screens are not always readily detectable, as they are in other of his films- save for the scene where Thornhill does not drive his car off a cliff that the bad guys want him to, and the sets constructed for some of the big chase scenes- especially the Mount Rushmore set, are fabulous, even by modern standards. While the cinematography by Robert Burks is solid, there are no eyepopping moments, and the score by Bernard Herrmann is one of his least memorable, especially considering what was just around the corner in Psycho.
North By Northwest, whose title is both manifest- given the film's final setting, and obscure and of unknown provenance- although oddly linked to a supposed quote from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, is not a great film, but it is a terrific movie, and because it is such utter and unrepentant fluff it holds up much better than many other 1950s vintage films, including many of Hitchcock's own overrated 'masterpieces', such as Rear Window and Vertigo. Yes, if you are the type who must go over everything with even a coarse toothcomb, the film simply will not work, but if you trust that the fun will leave your mind as unmussed as Cary Grant's coiffure, then watch it. After all, the perfect hair of Cary Grant is never something to be diminished.