North by Northwest

***North by Northwest*** is a 1959 American thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".

*North by Northwest* is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle out microfilm which contains government secrets. This is one of several Hitchcock films which feature a music score by Bernard Herrmann and an opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass, and it is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.

*North by Northwest* is listed among the canonical Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often listed among the greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

## Plot

At a New York City hotel bar in 1958, two thugs, looking for someone they refer to as "George Kaplan" see a waiter who is calling his name. Advertising executive Roger Thornhill summons the same waiter and Thornhill is, apparently for that reason, mistaken for Kaplan, kidnapped, brought to the Long Island estate of Lester Townsend and interrogated by spy Phillip Vandamm (who says that he is Townsend). Despite Thornhill's denials, Vandamm thinks he is lying and has henchman Leonard arrange Thornhill's death, in a staged drunken driving accident. Thornhill, surviving, is arrested for driving under the influence and taken to the Glen Cove, New York police station.

Thornhill fails to convince his mother and the police of what happened. Journeying to the scene of the crime with police, a woman at Townsend's home says he showed up drunk at her dinner party and tried to drive home. She also claims that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat and is in New York. While searching a hotel room with his mother that appears to belong to Kaplan, Thornhill answers a phone call from thugs who are in the lobby. He escapes and visits the U.N. General Assembly building to meet Townsend but realizes this person is *not* the man he met on Long Island. As he questions Townsend, one of the thugs throws a knife, killing Townsend. Thornhill catches Townsend as he falls and grabs the knife, which gives the appearance that he was the murderer. A nearby photographer captures this apparent crime; Thornhill flees and attempts to find the real Kaplan.

Word has reached a government intelligence agency in Washington D.C. who have learned that Thornhill has been mistaken for Kaplan, an imagined persona created by the agency to thwart Vandamm. Despite realizing that Thornhill could be killed, they decide against rescuing him for fear of compromising their operation.

 File:North by Northwest movie trailer screenshot (8).jpg
Thornhill sneaks onto a train, the *20th Century Limited*; there he meets Eve Kendall, who hides him from the police; the two establish a relationship—on her part because she is secretly working with Vandamm. In Chicago, she tells Thornhill she arranged a meeting with Kaplan at an isolated bus stop in a rural area. Thornhill waits there; rather than Kaplan arriving, Thornhill is attacked by a crop duster plane. After trying to hide in the fields, he steps in front of a speeding tank truck; it brakes for him and the airplane crashes into it, allowing him to escape.

Thornhill reaches Kaplan's hotel in Chicago to discover that Kaplan had already checked out and left before Kendall claimed she talked to him on the phone. When Thornhill goes to her room and confronts her, she leaves; he tracks her to an art auction where he finds Vandamm. Vandamm, who is purchasing a Mexican Purépecha statue, leaves his thugs to deal with Thornhill. Thornhill, in order to escape, disrupts the auction and police are summoned, who take him away. He explains that he is the fugitive murderer and they release him to the government agency's chief, "The Professor"; who tells Roger that they did not help him at first because they were trying not to get caught. He then reveals that Kaplan was invented to distract Vandamm from the real government agent—who is Eve Kendall. While hesitant at first, Thornhill agrees to help maintain her cover, especially since he has now put her in a compromising position.

At the Mount Rushmore visitor center Thornhill, now willingly playing the role of Kaplan, negotiates Vandamm's turnover of Kendall for her prosecution as a spy. When Thornhill appears to confront Kendall, she shoots him, seemingly fatally, with a handgun that is actually loaded with blanks and flees.

Afterward, the Professor arranges for Thornhill and Kendall to meet. Thornhill apologizes for what he did and she explains why she was with Vandam, they met at a party. He soon discovers Kendall must depart with Vandamm and Leonard on a plane. When Thornhill tries to dissuade her from going, he is knocked unconscious and locked in a hospital room. Thornhill escapes the Professor's custody and goes to Vandamm's house to rescue Kendall.

 File:North by Northwest movie trailer screenshot (28).jpg
At the house, Thornhill overhears that the sculpture holds microfilm and that Leonard discovered that the gun used by Kendall to kill Thornhill was filled with blanks. Vandamm indicates that he will kill Kendall during the flight. Thornhill warns her with a surreptitious note. Vandamm, Leonard and Kendall depart the house to board the plane. As Vandamm boards the plane, Kendall takes the sculpture and runs to the pursuing Thornhill. They flee to the top of Mount Rushmore. As they climb down the mountain they are pursued by Vandamm's thugs, including Leonard, who is fatally shot by a park ranger. Vandamm is taken into custody by the Professor.

Kendall meanwhile is hanging on by her fingertips on the mountain. Thornhill reaches down to pull her up, at which point the scene cuts to him pulling her—now the new Mrs. Thornhill—into the upper berth of a train. The train then enters a tunnel as they share a kiss.

## Trivia

* This movie has been referred to as "the first James Bond film" due to its similarities with splashily colorful settings, secret agents, and an elegant, daring, wisecracking leading man opposite a sinister yet strangely charming villain. The crop duster scene inspired the helicopter chase in From Russia with Love (1963).
* Sir Alfred Hitchcock had planned a sequence where Roger Thornhill hid in Abraham Lincoln's nose and had a sneezing fit. Park officials would not allow this to be filmed, but Hitchcock tried again and again. Finally, someone asked Hitchcock how he would feel if it were the other way around and Lincoln was having a sneezing fit in Cary Grant's nose. Hitchcock immediately understood, and the scene was never filmed. However, "The Man in Lincoln's Nose" was used as a "gag" working title.
* The house near the end of this movie was not real. Sir Alfred Hitchcock asked the set designers to make the set resemble a house by Frank Lloyd Wright, the most popular architect in America at the time, using the materials, form, and interiors associated with him. The set was built in Culver City, California, where MGM's studios were located. House exteriors were matte paintings.
* In one scene, Vandamm jokingly suggests Thornhill could use training from the Actors' Studio. Both Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau were from the Actors' Studio.
* Ranked #7 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Mystery" in June 2008.
* This is the only movie Sir Alfred Hitchcock made for MGM Studios.
* Despite the title, there is no compass direction named "North by Northwest."
* It has been stated but never confirmed that the reason Leonard disapproved of Vandamm and Kendall was because he was in love with Vandamm.
* Thornhill says in the film he has tickets for a show at the Winter Garden Theatre, the show playing that year was West Side Story, coincidentally, MGM would release film version of that play just two years later.

1. ↑ North by Northwest. *Turner Classic Movies*.
2. ↑ Jaynes, Barbara Grant (2004). Cary Grant: A Class Apart. Turner Classic Movies.
3. ↑ The Kinetic Typography Engine.
4. ↑ AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies.
5. ↑ 100 Greatest Films.
6. ↑ Top 100 Movies by Rank.