North by Northwest

Is there a more entertaining and richly satisfying Hitchcock film than North by Northwest? From the spiffy Saul Bass title sequence to the cliff-hanger climax on Mount Rushmore, with a zillion breathless, bizarre, and Freudian twists and turns in between, this quintessential suspense thriller is the largest and most lavish of the director’s works. The impeccable Cary Grant plays Roger Thornhill, a New York City advertising executive who, in a classic case of Hitchcockian mistaken identity, finds himself taken for a U.S. intelligent agent and forced on a dangerous cross-country adventure -- including, of course, one heart-stopping encounter with a crop duster on an Indiana cornfield. Ernest Lehman wrote the wild and witty double-chase script; the stunning images, in VistaVision and Technicolor, are by Robert Burks, and have to be seen on the big screen to be truly appreciated. François Truffaut, in his wonderful book-length interview with Hitchcock, declared, “just as The 39 Steps may be regarded as the compendium of your work in Britain, North by Northwest is the picture that epitomizes the whole of your work in America.” Hitchcock agreed. Colour, 35mm. 136 mins.