The Best of the Guilty Pleasures

Rating: 10/10 (13 December 2004)

Although I don't think this is Hitch's best film (IMHO that's "Rear Window"), it's my favorite, partly because it features the Century Limited (which also has a featured role in "The Sting") and partly because the cast is so deep -- besides the top drawer stars (Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin Landau) it has great supporting character actors -- Leo G. Carroll, Jessie Royce Landis, Philip Ober, Edward Platt, Ed Binns, Les Tremayne, and the uncredited Malcolm Atterbury.
The plot's merely a device to put together a string of unlikely set pieces involving Roger O. Thornhill (Grant), an advertising exec who is mistaken for a secret agent by two thugs, and taken off to meet the evil Jonathan Van Damme (Mason) masquerading as a UN Diplomat. The purpose of the charade is never explained; nor are Van Damme's contrived methods of offing Thornhill, none of which is successful. In a series of unlikely coincidences, Thornhill finds himself wanted for murder and fleeing from the police on the Century Limited, the train from New York to Chicago that saw thousands of passengers a day in its prime. Thornhill meets and seduces a beautiful young blonde on the train, who remarkably agrees to hide him from the authorities; mirabile dictu, she's Van Damme's girlfriend. But we don't care about the improbably confluence of events that drive the picture to its remarkable conclusion in South Dakota.
The first among many excellent off-screen contributions is the Bernard Hermann soundtrack, whose frequent hemiolas paint an aural picture of the jagged angles suggested by the title and the opening credits set against the facade of the UN building.
I agree with the many reviewers who put this movie at the top of their lists, and pity those who can't see the humor or suspense in this Hitch classic. One suggestion -- see this on the big screen, if you can. Just for an example, the crop dusting scene is suspenseful enough on DVD; the last time I watched it in a theater, people were ducking in their seats to get away from the plane.