In Alfred Hitchcock's suspenseful spy thriller, North By Northwest, a waiter pages George Kaplan at the Plaza Hotel in New York City at the request of two well-dressed thugs. Roger Thornhill (a memorable Cary Grant), an advertising executive, summons the same waiter, which means he is mistaken for Kaplan and kidnapped by the thugs.
Phillip Vandamm, a foreign spy interrogates Thornhill and arranges to kill him in a staged drunk driving crash, but Thornhill survives. He goes on the run with the beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who he meets on a train.
NBNw is entertaining with clever twists and turns but it also has its fair share of melodramatic far fetched moments. The leisurely pace might put modern viewers off.
The crop duster sequence is iconic but it's also a little silly now. The Mount Rushmore showdown is well done but the final moments are abrupt and implausible. Good but somewhat dated.
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DIRECTED BY: Alfred Hitchcock, SCREENPLAY BY: Ernest Lehman. RUNNING TIME: 136 minutes. CERTIFICATE: USA.
