North by Northwest

Yesterday I had the chance to see North By Northwest on the big screen again!  It is one of my very favorite movies so I couldn't pass up the chance to see it as it was meant to be seen one more time.  It is the first Alfred Hitchcock movie I remember watching (on PBS late at night when I was in high school) and I think it is a great introduction to Hitchcock because it is a stylish and suspenseful action thriller with Cold War intrigue that is highly entertaining.  Cary Grant is Roger Thornhill, a Madison Avenue ad executive, who is inadvertently mistaken for George Kaplan, a nonexistent CIA agent created to protect a real agent in pursuit of a spy seeking to smuggle microfilm out of the country.  Eva Marie Saint is Eve Kendall, the requisite icy blonde who helps Thornhill elude the police.  In my opinion, almost every scene in this movie is absolutely iconic, including the kinetic typography in the opening credits, the drunken car chase along a winding coastal highway, the crop duster attack on a lonely prairie highway, and the final confrontation on top of Mount Rushmore.  I look forward to each of these scenes with anticipation.  I love all of the locations in this film:  the Plaza Hotel, the mansion in Glen Cove, the U.N. General Assembly Building, Grand Central Station, the cafeteria at Mount Rushmore, and the house inspired by architect Frank Loyd Wright.  The costumes are fabulous, especially the grey suit worn by Cary Grant through most of the movie, and those worm by Eva Marie Saint, which, apparently, she selected at Bergdorf Goodman.  I love the characters and I find Roger Thornhill to be the very definition of suave and sophisticated (all men should try to be more like Cary Grant).  The witty banter between Roger and Eve is so much fun.  Finally, the score by Bernard Herrmann, who scored many of Hitchcock's movies, is quite stirring and adds much to the suspense.  I love this movie so much!

Note:  It was screened as part of TMC's Big Screen Classics series.  Go here for more information about the upcoming movies in the series.  I am really looking forward to quite a few of them!