Pure cinematic perfection It's as simple as that!

Rating: 10/10 (29 October 2014)

I always do something special for anniversaries, and since this is the 3.400th user comment that I write for this wonderful website, I chose to review one of the greatest movies of all-time! Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest" is a timeless landmark, an impeccable classic and a pure cinematic monument! Only a handful of movies are totally perfect in every tiniest detail and remain just as astounding by today's standards as when they were first released upon audiences; - more than fifty years ago in this case. Straight from the marvelous and already unforgettable opening credits, designed by the brilliant Saul Bass and provided with mind-blowing music by Bernard Herrmann, you know that this will become a highlight even in the overall magnificent repertoire of Alfred Hitchcock. The genius screenplay, written by the same guy who scripted "The Sound of Music" and "West Side Story" of all people, is a kind of James Bond story avant-la-lettre. It's a nail-bitingly tense and at times extremely grotesque conspiracy/espionage thriller in which an innocent man's identity is mistaken for that of a government spy who actually doesn't exist. The sly and overconfident advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill is abducted from a hotel lobby and taken to a fancy countryside mansion where he's forced to admit that he is George Kaplan by the foreign spy Philippe Vandamm and his rude team. Thornhill narrowly escapes a carefully planned assassination attempt, but subsequently finds himself framed for murder and pursued by the police as well as by his assailants. He travels to Chicago by train, meets the staggeringly beautiful Eve Kendall and battles for his life all across America, until the final confrontation takes place on top of the Mount Rushmore monument. Now, it's already immensely difficult to bring a genuine edge-of- your-seat suspense thriller, but this film is simultaneously also comical! The humor in the screenplay of "North by Northwest" is constant, subtle and dry. The dialogs between Cary Grant and Eve Saint Marie are a terrific example of this, but also the performances of Martin Landau (as the main villain's evil sidekick) and Jessie Royce Landis (as Grant's skeptical mother) are blackly humorous. The action sequences are phenomenal, with the legendary crop dusting airplane chase sequence as the absolute highlight, and the climax is unforgettable. "North by Northwest" is just downright perfect; it's as simple as that.