North by Northwest (1959)

Written by Ernest Lehman

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

1998 List Ranking: 40

2007 List Ranking: 55

I feel like it’s fair to say, at least in the view of the American Film Institute, that Hitchcock gave the public his best work in the 1950’s. This film, North by Northwest, is the third of four Hitchcock films in the decade (the next one technically was released in 1960, but it began filming in late 1959), and indeed the 1950’s is the only decade that Hitchcock is represented in. Like the other Hitchcock films on this list, I had seen North by Northwest before, and while I liked it slightly more in this viewing, I still found myself somewhat underwhelmed.

The film follows Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill, an advertising executive from New York who is mistaken as FBI agent George Kaplan by an American spy, Vandamm (James Mason), and his thugs. This mistaken identity crisis escalates when Thornhill is framed for the murder of a U.N. diplomat. Unaware that “Kaplan” is not real and is actually a decoy used by the FBI to throw suspicion off their REAL mole inside the spy’s organization, Thornhill decides to track down Kaplan to clear his own name. Along the way, he crosses paths with Eva Marie Saint’s Eve Kendall, a woman who may hold a few tricks up her own sleeve. Thornhill must stay one step ahead of Vandamm and the police and their various attempts to catch or kill him.

Grant does a fairly convincing job as Thornhill, even if the plot doesn’t always make a ton of sense for what he has to do. He is certainly a lot more calm and collected than I would be in these situations, as he never seems to really lose his cool; Grant is in full stereotypical leading man mode here, full of a breezy quip and a “this harebrained scheme will work the first time I try it” attitude. I suppose it’s fine for the time and the genre (I can imagine just going to the theater and just letting yourself get lost in the style of it all), although it feels a little superficial now.

As his co-star, Saint does lack a little in visible emotion, but she plays the femme fatale very well. The audience, once they’re in on her role(s) in the plot, is never quite sure just which of those is her true loyalty, so it creates a fun bit of additional intrigue on top of the already-intriguing plot. As the villain Vandamm, Mason is also delightfully upper-crust-antagonistic. His delivery reminds me a bit of a Bond villain (and, indeed, apparently this film has inspired the Bond series in a variety of ways). He doesn’t get a great ending (which I’ll talk about in a moment), but he’s great fun to watch.

Thornhill is packed away by Vandamm’s goons

As I suspected when I recalled about watching this movie the first time, the plot is a little flimsy and weak in some spots. From the beginning, there is a certain suspension of disbelief that Hitchcock asks of his audience that carries through to the rest of the film. Thornhill is mistaken as Kaplan simply because he tries to get a waiter’s attention at the same moment that the waiter calls out for a Mr. Kaplan; he’s quickly taken and thrown into a car, and no one stops for a single second to just make sure that they got the right guy. If this is the quality of work these two henchmen regularly provide, then Vandamm needs to reexamine his hiring process.

Then, we learn that Kaplan doesn’t really exist, he’s just a wildly extensive fiction invented by the FBI, including fake suitcases and dry-cleaning needs (this ignores the fact that supposedly no one has actually seen Kaplan, yet SOMEONE has to go to these various hotel rooms and not only check in but also pack and unpack these various belongings). The Professor decides that Thornhill should just continue being misidentified as Kaplan, essentially creating an unknowing sacrificial lamb, all to protect the REAL undercover agent who, we later learn, isn’t even a real agent, just someone who was in the right place at the right time and was easily swayed. Basically, the lives of Thornhill and the agent are weighed against each other, and the Professor chooses the agent with no explanation why!

James Mason as Vandamm and Martin Landau as Leonard

That’s not to say that the film is all bad: there are some great sequences, perhaps most famously the attack by a crop-dusting plane. I really enjoyed the climatic sequence inside Vandamm’s house (conveniently atop Mt. Rushmore), but once the action moves to the monument, the film fails to stick its landing. Not only does the sequence REALLY push the boundaries of the suspension of disbelief (WHO THE HELL IS ABLE TO CLIMB DOWN THE FACE OF MT. RUSHMORE WITHOUT EQUIPMENT AND, IN ONE CASE, IN HEELS), but it does a disservice to Vandamm. We see him about to board his plane out of the country, then Thornhill and Kendall are chased down the mountain by a couple of Vandamm’s goons (one of whom is a really great performance by Martin Landau), then we suddenly see that Vandamm is in custody of the FBI. We never find out how they know, how they find him, or even what happens, because right as the sequence is coming to an end, we jump forward to discover the fate of Thornhill and Kendall before cutting to a phallically metaphoric final shot (just…watch the movie). I get that Thornhill and Kendall are the primary plot, but there are just enough loose ends to be somewhat annoying.

North by Northwest is one of Hitchcock’s classics, and I suppose it’s not ALL THAT bad. Its influence can still be seen even today, and perhaps without a heavily critical eye, the film could be seen as a lot of fun. However, because my favorite (perhaps stereotypically) of Hitchcock’s films is coming up, this film almost feels like a speed bump to get over just to reach it.

FINAL GRADE: C+

Jan 19 North by Northwest (1959)

Jan 22 Some Like it Hot (1959)

Jan 15 Vertigo (1958)