Good, but overrated

Rating: Null/10 (31 July 2005)

NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a wonderful film. It's not as good as REAR WINDOW or PSYCHO, but it's still very well made. The directing is top notch. Hitchcock builds up tension like no other director can, except maybe for John Carpenter with some of his earliest work like HALLOWEEN. Almost as impressive as the directing in NORTH BY NORTHWEST is the editing. The film is cut almost perfectly. Editing in thrillers is key. Without proper editing, a movie is no good. Editing can make or break a film. Editing is what keeps it alive. The editing here never appears choppy. It's always clear. While the editing and directing is certainly admirable, I still feel that NORTH BY NORTHWEST is overrated. It's not Hitchcock's best. That would be PSYCHO. The problem with this one is that it has not aged as well as Hitchcock's other masterpieces. In fact, this is the one that has been hurt the most by age. It seems a bit dated and is not as suspenseful as it once was. For that, I can only give it 8/10. It's still good, just not great enough to be on the top 250 here on IMDb.