Hitchcock's best?

Rating: 10/10 (2 March 2005)

Most folks here rate Vertigo and Rear Window higher, but i always come back to this one. For sheer entertainment, i love North by Northwest and the 39 Steps. Maybe because Hitchcock's sense of humor is so evident, keeping the pace off-balance and relieving the anxiety every so often? Somehow i don't think Hitchcock found much humor or comedy resident in Jimmy Stewart, but he saw it and expertly tapped into it in Cary Grant--Archie Leach--Roger Thornhill. Maybe because they were both Brits? This is one of the few movies i was overwhelmed by as a kid and found even more fascinating as an adult. I don't know much about the life of Alfred Hitchcock, but it does seem to me that his view of human nature darkened later on --i am thinking of Psycho and the Birds as two obvious examples--and we gradually see much less of this sort of sly, almost parody of Hollywood's portrayals, in this case of the successful New Yorker about town. Hitch is also playing with us -- laughing at American sexual stereotypes, as he first profiles Thornhill as an aging mama's boy (fussing at his secretary, preoccupied with his mother while at the Oak Bar with his advertising buddies, using up his only phone call at the police station to call her), setting us up --so that we are somewhat taken aback when he starts pursuing Eva Marie Saint.
My few disappointments with this film are that James Mason is rather under-utilized and one-dimensional, and that the last few scenes seem rushed so that one moment we are atop Mt. Rushmore and the next the film is over. But still....