it's not just Cary Grant getting chased by the crop-duster...

Rating: 10/10 (19 June 2005)

A common theme in Alfred Hitchcock's movies was chaos: collapsing innocence in "Shadow of a Doubt", getting drug into a murder plot in "Strangers on a Train", the possible murder in "Rear Window", the shower scene in "Psycho", or the avians' unexplained killing spree in "The Birds". But more specific than simply chaos, is getting falsely accused of something, as happens in "North by Northwest". Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, an executive who gets mistaken for someone else. When he tries to avoid involvement, they set him up by murdering someone at the United Nations. Now he's on the run, and can trust only Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint).
Almost as famous as the crop-duster scene is the Mt. Rushmore scene. The way that one might interpret that scene is not what happens there, but what the monument itself represents. It shows past presidents, as if to represent the highest authority, as the UN scene might have been doing.
Another interesting scene is the auction. If you look at how Eve is dressed and how she is seated, you notice that she is sort of like the colorful halfway point between two drab points, represented by two men (maybe that's just my interpretation). And of course Eva Marie Saint was one of Hitchcock's "icy blondes", much like Grace Kelly, Doris Day, Kim Novak, Janet Leigh and Tippi Hedren.
Once again, Hitch proved himself to be a master director.