A film that will always be able to hold its own against modern adventure thrillers

Rating: 9/10 (3 May 2008)

There's something so timeless about "North by Northwest" and it's not necessarily that it will echo with any generation. Cary Grant's Roger Thornhill, for example, feels a little foreign among today's thriller protagonists (accent aside) as a 50-year-old everyday man thrown into a mess of a government situation. The action is certainly not big- budget like modern films either with the exception of one explosion. The "it" that "Northwest" has is something more unique and a lot of it stems from great thriller writing and of course the direction of Sir Alfred Hitchcock.
"Northwest" follows the story of how Thornhill is taken against his will and accused of being a man named George Kaplan. These men try and kill Thornhill and have concocted elaborate cover-ups, to the point that Thornhill has no choice but to do whatever he must to prove his innocence, which actually leads him deeper into the mystery of George Kaplan. The writing of Ernest Lehman is absolutely terrific and it seems a shame that Hitchcock never collaborated with him again. The dialogue is not only very pointed and helpful to the plot, but also the plot movement with its twists and turns and clever way of revealing information to the viewer is simply classic Cold War spy thriller stuff, the skeletal structure that would later become synonymous with someone by the name of James Bond, despite "North by Northwest" predating Bond by three years.
Although Roger Thornhill has nothing on James Bond, "North by Northwest" gets to boast Hitchcock's signature directing. No one seems to choose better moments to employ certain shot techniques than Hitchcock. He knows how to turn the best parts of the film into highly memorable and often times unforgettable scenes. The crop-duster attack is easily one of the greatest scenes in thriller movie history, specifically the shot where he's running as the plane gets larger and closer in the background. The difference between Hitchcock and the rest when it comes to a cross-country thriller like this is largely editing and length of takes. Hitchcock creates intensity by letting things build, like lengthy takes of the cars driving down the highway or the plane circling around to make another pass.
From Thornhill's drunken escape to the cropduster sequence to a finale on Mount Rushmore, so much of "North by Northwest" remains unique, even to this day, even after all the Bond movies modeled after it and despite archetypes like Eva Marie Saint's femme fatale character. It has a certain inventiveness (and a certain director) that will always allow it to stand out.
~Steven C
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*Initial review revised on February 17, 2017.