Movie #42: North by Northwest . Or really, the craziest set up you've ever seen!

Title: North by Northwest

Starring: Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint 

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Number on the AFI List: 55

Year: 1959

This is the first Hitchcock movie that I thoroughly enjoyed (I know, I know. I spent a good 30 minutes talking to some friends about how I haven’t resonated with Hitchcock yet, but I’ve wanted to). From the beginning of the movie, poor Roger Thronhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for a CIA agent, George Kaplan by foreign spies led by Phillip Vandamm. The joke is on Vandamm, however, because Kaplan doesn't exist! Vandamm is a master at setting up Thornhill, even to the point of Thornhill being framed for murder. However, what Vandamm doesn’t know is that the CIA is just as masterful at playing tricks on people, and Thornhill ends up working with the CIA and Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) in order to get microfilm from Vandamm. The movie ends with a climactic chase down Mount Rushmore. The rescue is a typical deus ex machina which kind of drove me crazy, but really, how else can you save people from falling to their deaths off of George Washington’s nose? (Ok, it wasn’t exactly like that, but close!)

If that plot synopsis confused you, don't worry. I'm still confused, too...and probably missed a few vital moments.

The cinematography was remarkable, with many shots being filmed from high above or in a crowd of people, giving the audience a feeling of claustrophobia and (harkening back to one of Hitchcock’s other films) vertigo. The movie is an endless cat and mouse chase, and is beautifully directed and acted. Eva Marie Saint steals the movie when she enters as the seductive, undercover agent Eve. If Cary Grant’s character was brighter, he would have become aware that she was sent to seduce him, but of course he just falls for it. Men.

Favorite moment: The “first dinner date” on the train.

Will I watch it again: sure!