Hitchcock at his entertaining best.

Rating: Null/10 (15 June 2003)

Sandwiched in between Hitchcock's daylit noir 'Vertigo' (1958) and his macabre comedy 'Psycho' (1960) is 'North By Northwest' (1959). His reverting to type as a director of espionage films, a genre that was begun by Fritz Lang's Dr Mabuse series of films, Hitchcock fine tuned the espionage thriller until he made it uniquely his own. What better actor to play the lead than Hollywood's most
romantic leading man, Cary Grant, whom Hitchcock had cast in three other films, 'Suspicion' (1941-opposite Joan Fontaine), 'Notorious' (1946-opposite Ingrid
Bergman) and 'To Catch A Theif' (1954-opposite Grace Kelly). To play a man in a grey flannel suit enmeshed in a web of deceit and a game of musical identities, Grant is suave and amusing with remarkable survival skills-survivors on reality TV-eat your heart out! But Hitch's pinache is very much in evidence applying a lighter touch here than in any of his previous films (including Mr and Mrs Smith, a comedy-1941). The pace is so brisk you wonder where the time has flown. And speaking of flown. The cropduster sequence is required text book material at
most film schools across the country. But there are so many other set pieces in this film one tends to lose count. Grant's vertiginous night drive ("You didn't borrow Laura's Mercedes") in a drunken stupor. The high over head shot of
Grant leaving the murder scene as he dashes for a cab in front of the UN
building. His romantic encounter in the dining car aboard the Twentieth Century Limited with Eva Marie Saint (the classic Hitchcock blonde). That magnificent Frank Lloyd Wright hideaway complete with landing field belonging to equally
suave villain James Mason. And that wild descent down the granite faces of
Mount Rushmore-the literal cliff-hanger! Hitch's 'Saboture' (1942) may have
provided the master builder with a blueprint for this film but 'North By
Northwest' confirmed Hitchcock's status as film auteur par excellance and the true 'master of suspense'.
There are so many wonderful lines in 'North By Northwest' it is hard to chose. But if I had to pick only one, it would be the scene in the auction gallery where Grant finding Eva Marie Saint together with James Mason and his henchman (21 year old Martin Landau), surprises all three by showing up unexpectedly with
the line: "Now there's a picture only Charles Adams could draw."