everything you want from Alfred Hitchcock, you're going to get it in "North by Northwest"

Rating: 9/10 (6 August 2009)

After completing his psychological masterwork "Vertigo" in 1958, the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock decided it was time to turn back and make another high-energy, less thought-evoking thrill ride but still, at the same time, incorporate all of his favorite trademark film characteristics like he had done with "Rear Window" in 1954. "North by Northwest" was the result of his new initiative. This is a genuinely entertaining Saturday matinée thriller that shows that Hitchcock could be produce something that was pure and simple fun through his mastery.
"North by Northwest" stars Cary Grant, one of Hitchcock's most famous leading men, as a stuck-up New York advertising executive who is mistaken for a notorious government agent by a command of foreign spies led by James Mason. When he manages to escape their capture the first time (along with his own death), Grant goes on the run when they frame him for murder and he encounters many obstacles including a machine gun-toting biplane, misinformed police officers, and an icy, cool blond played memorably by Eva Marie Saint.
Alfred Hitchcock liked to reuse the trademark plot elements and themes from his most successful films in hopes of repeating success at the box office and in "North by Northwest", he brings virtually all of them together again as he had done in "Vertigo" a year before: mistaken identity, an innocent man thrown into an unknown situation, treachery and the consequences of treachery, false accusations, and so forth. Although Hitchcock's aim was to do something on the opposite side of the psychological field from "Vertigo", he ended up producing what could be "Vertigo" if it was an action-comedy.
Everything people want and expect from Hitchcock, they're going to get it. Hitchcock was not only a master at generating suspense and mystery, but he was a master of storytelling as well. The idea of a civilian mistaken for a government agent has been used many times before and after "North by Northwest", but Hitchcock does it with such primal energy and such style and enthusiasm that his film is really the landmark in the genre. Who can forget, just to list one example, Cary Grant running across a desolate field from the biplane that had been "dustin' crops where there ain't no crops"? Hitchcock had at first been planning on using his previous leading man, James Stewart, again for "North by Northwest" and there are conflicting stories as to why Stewart was not given the role. Some say Hitchcock felt Stewart was too old to keep an audience interested anymore. Others say Stewart was already tied in with filming Otto Preminger's masterful courtroom drama "Anatomy of a Murder" (1959). Whatever the case, as wonderful an actor James Stewart was and as fantastic a job he would have done (to put it mildly), this was the sort of film that was meant for and should have been done by Cary Grant. The role of Roger O. Thornhill was meant for him like Charles Foster Kane was meant for Orson Welles and Norman Bates for Anthony Perkins. Even at fifty-five, Grant is very charismatic and charming and competent as the New Yorker on the run from enemies he does not understand in a situation he does not understand. The studio had also wanted Hitchcock to cast Sophia Loren as the icy cold leading lady, but this was most certainly the vehicle for recent Oscar-winner Eva Marie Saint, who is seductive and sometimes cold in the role of the woman Grant also cannot understand. And the casting of James Mason as the antagonist is not only a wise choice, but ironic, as eleven years before in Hitchcock's experimental film, "Rope", three characters had listed James Mason as a great villainous actor.
And of course, we have Hitchcock controlling everybody and everything as he always did. He makes his usual cameo appearance very early in the movie (probably because he was tired of people scanning the screen for him throughout the entire running time instead of watching the movie). And in regards to creating energy, raising questions, and of course, generating suspense, he does not fail. Now, the climax for the film did not quite ring my bell, but that's a very minor complaint. Hitchcock was one of the two or three best filmmakers who ever lived and this is one of his most entertaining works. Everything you want from Alfred Hitchcock, you're going to get it in "North by Northwest."