It's impossible to praise this film too much

Rating: 10/10 (28 July 2006)

Arguably director Alfred Hitchcock's best-loved film, NORTH BY NORTHWEST is an insanely skillful blend of action, romance, comedy, and intrigue that never feels contrived or strained. The film was almost instantly embraced by critics and audiences as a film masterpiece, and it has since only grown in reputation as one of the all-time great films of any era. Amazingly, this is certainly one case where such high ended praise is completely deserved, and, in fact, this is one of those rare films that have been heralded as a "classic" for decades that truly meets such impossibly high expectations. As a matter of fact, it very well may be impossible to say too many good things about this picture.
Alfred Hitchcock is always a director that typically placed technical film craft over the importance of such necessary dramatic devices such as plausible plot twists and significant character development. As a matter of fact, the 1946 film Notorious (which gets my vote as the master's best film) is probably the only truly character-driven film of his career. However, the artificiality of the plot and strictly two-dimensional nature of the character is absolutely not a problem in this film, and may even be one of its strongest assets. This is because NORTH BY NORTHWEST, as with Hitchcock's 1955 picture TO CATCH A THIEF, is a total farce from beginning to end, and typically strong storytelling elements such as a clear narrative and believable characters would have only bloated the picture.
Further cementing the film's status as an unquestioned masterwork is the jaw-dropping number of eye-catching set pieces that retain in the memory even years after the picture has ended, yet somehow manage to gel into a coherent whole. Hitchcock was in the absolute peak of his technical prowess here, and each and every scene plays out with the seemingly impossible professionalism that only a truly skilled and inventive filmmaker can achieve. Sure, the now-landmark crop duster scene and the Mt. Rushmore finale are now as permanently etched in the public's collective conscious as the Nation Anthem, but virtually any other scene in the film (no matter how minor it's significance) is nearly as stunning. And Hitchcock also pulls memorable performances from Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Phillip Ober, and Martin Landau  all whom are perfectly cast and play their intentionally thin roles with an alarming exactness.
Yet even more than Hitchcock's film-making mastery, the real reason the film is an absolute gem from beginning to end is none other than Cary Grant. At age 55 and still unnervingly handsome, Grant is perhaps Hitchcock's perfect on-screen hero as he jump-starts even the most under-developed roles with magnetic charisma, dapper humor, and an disarming sex appeal that remains absolutely effortless even in his third decade as actor. The film basically calls upon Grant to venture into practically ever screen personae that he had personified up to that time, and the dashing actor impressively never misses a beat. Although NORTH BY NORTHWEST is a film that has completely earned the title of masterpiece for many reasons, watching one of the silver screen's ultimate stars work his uncompromised magic is reason enough to hold it in high esteem.