Engaging From Start To Finish

Rating: 7/10 (13 January 2014)

I want to say first that I liked this movie. I also have to say that I expected a little bit more from a movie that's considered one of the best ever made, and one of the best (if not THE best by many people) movies ever directed by Alfred Hitchcock. I found it to be an engaging movie, most certainly. It never lost my attention. There was enough going on that I wanted to know how things were going to turn out, and there were even a few situations in which it was impossible to know who's side a particular character was on. All that worked very well for me.
I was also impressed by the performances from the three primary leads. Cary Grant was quite good as Roger Thornhill, a New York City businessman who through a case of mistaken identity ends up on the run as apparently Eastern bloc agents try to pull off some sort of scheme (that isn't really revealed until close to the end of the movie.) Thornhill is maybe a little too good at times - your normal businessman who seems to take too readily to the undercover espionage business. But Grant did well as the character. James Mason was the villain Philip Vandamm and was able to offer the perfect combination of menace and charm - just enough to make his character (who could have been quite one dimensional) interesting. And, of course, there had to be a beautiful woman - in this case Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall, who becomes involved with Thornhill but is actually working for Vandamm.
I'm not sure that I'd agree that this was Hitchcock's finest performance as a director. He made a movie that was engaging, but not really spellbinding, although he managed to do a good job of gradually building the suspense.
Certainly,. this is a very good movie. I'd argue, though, that it's a wee bit over-rated. Still very good, though. (7/10)