"Games, must we?"

Rating: 9/10 (10 November 2006)

When you come right down to it, the title "North By Northwest" tells you nothing about the story, but it certainly rolls off the tongue a lot better than "The Man in Lincoln's Nose" as the movie was originally known. The official title comes from Hamlet - "I am but mad north-north-west". Fortunately, a scene at the airline's ticket counter lends some semblance of credibility to the northwest connection.
What had me going was how the film managed to keep up with the pretense of a phony George Kaplan, to the point where Cary Grant's character winds up becoming the impostor. Grant was a Hitchcock favorite, and the role here was written with him in mind, even though MGM wanted Gregory Peck in the lead. I don't know if Peck could have pulled off the auction scene the same way as Grant. His roles portraying slick hustlers like Walter Burns in "His Girl Friday" or the more sinister Johnnie Asgarth in another Hitchcock effort "Suspicion", more than readied him to pull off the stunt and get away with it.
Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) is clearly a duplicitous character, one gets the impression that maybe Roger Thornhill (Grant) is just a bit too good for her. Hitch's penchant for beautiful blonds in his films gets the royal treatment here, Saint is radiant in nearly all her scenes, made more so by the bright red of her outfit on the train.
You know, I could listen to James Mason speak all day, he's got that great resonant quality to his voice. Casting him as the villain lends immediate credibility to the bad guy cause in the story. Martin Landau appears in one of his first film roles as Mason's henchman. I always enjoy seeing Leo G. Carroll in a film, probably because of my fondness for his role in the early TV series "Topper". Here he appears cast somewhat against type as The Professor heading up an unknown agency that attempts to take down Vandamm's (Mason) subversive little clique. It was actually a bit chilling to see The Professor willing to let the cards fall as they may as relating to Thornhill's dilemma.
If done today, I'm sure the whole Mount Rushmore scene would be presented to look a lot more believable; the way Thornhill prevails requires a stretch of the imagination. But by that time, I found myself saying 'who cares', because the thrill ride was worth it to see Grant come away the hero. Hitch pulls it off with that neat device at the end of the story so we don't get caught up in the whole cliff hanger ending ordeal. It's a clever little happy ending to an espionage tale that might have suffered in less capable hands, but here director Hitchcock keeps you on your toes and the edge of your seat in a way that delivers the goods.