Year Released: 1959
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Martin Landau
(Not Rated, 136 min.)
Genre: Classics, Mystery and Suspense

“Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself ‘slightly’ killed.” –Roger Thorndale

Arguably Hitchcock’s popular and critical masterpiece, this film has it all. Cary Grant is magnificent as the wrongly accused man on the run, handling his dire straits with dry humor and nonchalance. The action set pieces are riveting and so superior to the CGI we typically get today. While the romantic banter has a verbal wit we seem to have forgotten on screen.

In fact, many have noted that North by Northwest is “the first James Bond film” with its “splashy colorful settings, secret agents, elegant, daring, wisecracking lead,” as well as a “sinister yet strangely charming villain.”

Our daring lead doesn’t quite compete with Bond the serial seducer, however. In fact, his mother seems the dominant woman in his life at present, but that is before he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), and the sparks fly:

Eve: I'm Eve Kendall. I'm twenty-six and unmarried. Now you know everything.

Roger: Tell me. What do you do besides lure men to their doom on the Twentieth Century Limited?

Eve: I'm an industrial designer.

Roger: Jack Phillips. Western sales manager for Kingby Electronics.

Eve: No, you're not. You're Roger Thornhill of Madison Avenue, and you're wanted for murder on every front page in America, and don't be so modest.

Roger: Whoops!

Eve: Oh, don't worry, I won't say a word.

Roger: How come?

Eve: I told you. It's a nice face.

Roger: Is that the only reason?

Eve: It's going to be a long night.

Roger: True.

Eve: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.

Roger: Ahhh.

Eve: You know what I mean?

Roger: Uh, let me think. [Pause] Yes, I know exactly what you mean...

Everyone remembers the famous scene in the Indiana cornfield where Thornhill suddenly realizes a crop duster is out to kill him instead of any wayward pests.

But the slow buildup, when the thriller puts on the brakes for a while, is just as good. We become as impatient as an out of place Thornhill waiting at the designated rural bus stop, his tailored suit getting dusty just standing there in the dry heat and desolation. After a few interminable minutes a local farmer joins him to wait for the next bus and wonders why the nearby crop duster is flying over an unplanted field. Then just as the bus departs, Thornhill sees the low flying plane heading directly toward him.

Another scene not usually mentioned is the perfect blend of comic danger. Vandamn’s two hired thugs – a young Martin Landau particularly creepy as one of them – have poured a bottle of bourbon down Thornhill’s throat, placed their drunken victim in the driver’s seat of a convertible, and are just ready to push him off a seaside cliff when Thornhill comes out of his stupor – sort of. He puts peddle to the medal and drives away, barely avoiding careening into the sea at the welter of hairpin curves. To see him lurch around, trying to summon some forced sobriety to keep him alive in as funny as it is frightening.

Have a look here at some other colorful settings . With a few exceptions, Hitchcock used the real things in his “3000 miles chase across America” from New York to Chicago, to South Dakota. One of the more notable is The Plaza Hotel in New York where advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) gets mistaken for a secret agent when he answers a phone call at the wrong time.

Then there’s the redbrick Long Island mansion where Thorndale meets the eloquent villain Phillip Vandamn James Mason), not to mention the United Nations Headquarters, Grand Central Station in New York, and the old Lasalle Street Station in Chicago, which was replaced in the early 80s by “a bland, new modern structure.”

The final climatic scene at Mount Rushmore used a studio model so as not to disrespect the landmark, Also not used for the same reason was the plot device that had Thornhill “given away by a sneeze while hidden inside President Lincoln’s nostril.”

Unlike our gritty film fare today, we do not have a dire ending with a disillusioned lead. Instead, it’s the bad guys who get their just deserts, while Roger Thorndale does not do too badly.

Eve: You're very clever with words. You can probably make them do anything for you. Sell people things they don't need. Make women who don't know you fall in love with you.

Roger: I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid.

Don’t miss the final scene, one Hitchcock called his most “impudent” ever. It is the final gem in this crowning jewel of a film. See it again or for the first time, and weep for a bygone Hollywood that lured us out of our funks instead of wallowing in them.

–Kathy Borich
🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

Trailer

Film-Loving Foodie

Even though it’s two thugs that forcibly pour Bourbon down Roger Thorndale’s throat, we know he is certainly not a teetotaler, as referenced in our quote:

So let’s stir up a drink that might go down a bit more easily for him, but one that matches his mood after being abducted from the Plaza Hotel.

Our New York Sour is both classy and delicious. Enjoy.

You can also enjoy these other Bourbon Cocktails from earlier reviews:

The Four Horseman Cocktail Recipe

Mint Julet Recipe

Perfect Mint Julep Recipe

Wild Mustang Cocktail Recipe

London’s Calling Cocktail Recipe