Silly by today's standard, but those standards were set by this film

Rating: 8/10 (5 September 2009)

I got tired of seeing all kind of references to North by Northwest in American movies and not remembering a bit of it. So I got the film and watched it. It was both exhilarating and completely goofy. I mean, it's 1959 , the clichés are different and many of the ones to come will be based on the ones in the movie.
Cary Grant can't help but get the girl, his suit is almost spotless no matter what he does in it and how many days he is running by both police and bad guys in it and both FBI and baddies are pretty much ridiculous. Why did they abduct him in the first place? Why fake the death by drunk driving if they already knew he was a government agent? Why does the girl so blatantly, even by today's standards, hit on Cary Grant and he just doesn't get it's a ruse? How can one expect to successfully murder someone from a crop dusting plane using a machine-gun? Why all old guys in movies at that time come from education establishments?
But at that time, it must have been great. I can imagine a remake with Ben Affleck and Scarlett Johansson. Vincent D'Onofrio as Vandamm, Martin Landau as The Professor, for continuity's sake :) Bottom line: is it the marvelously witty masterpiece of cinematography that I kind of expecting? Definitely not. Was it a good '59 movie? Hell, yeah! It's Cary Grant, dood! ;)