North by Northwest is a 1959 American
thriller directed by
Alfred Hitchcock and starring
Cary Grant,
Eva Marie Saint and
James Mason.
[2] The screenplay was by
Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".
[3]
North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle out
microfilm that contains government secrets.
This is one of several Hitchcock films that features a music score by
Bernard Herrmann and a memorable opening
title sequence by graphic designer
Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of
kinetic typography in its opening credits.
[4]
North by Northwest is now numbered among the essential Hitchcock pictures and is often listed as one of the
greatest films of all time.
[5][6][7] It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the
National Film Registry by the United States
Library of Congress, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Cary Grant, just as he is accosted by his kidnappers in the film's opening act
At a New York City hotel bar in 1958, two thugs looking for a "George Kaplan" see a waiter calling out for him at the same time advertising executive Roger Thornhill (
Cary Grant) summons the waiter. Thornhill is then mistaken for "George Kaplan" and is kidnapped. Thornhill is brought to the
Long Island estate of Lester Townsend and is interrogated by spy Phillip Vandamm (
James Mason). Despite Thornhill denying he is George Kaplan, Vandamm thinks he is lying and has his henchman Leonard (
Martin Landau) arrange Thornhill's death in a staged drunken driving accident. Thornhill manages to miraculously steer away from danger but is soon arrested for
driving under the influence.
The next morning, Thornhill tries but fails to convince his mother and the police that he had been kidnapped and forcibly inebriated. Journeying to the scene of the crime with police, a woman at Townsend's home (
Josephine Hutchinson), presumed to be Mrs. Townsend, says he showed up drunk at her dinner party. She also informs them that Townsend is a
United Nations diplomat. While searching Kaplan's hotel room with his mother, Thornhill answers a phone call from the thugs who are in the hotel lobby. He escapes and visits the
U.N. General Assembly building to meet Townsend. He discovers that Townsend (
Philip Ober) is not the man he met on
Long Island, and that Townsend is a widower. As Thornhill questions Townsend, one of the thugs throws a knife, hitting Townsend in the back, killing him. Thornhill catches Townsend as he falls and grabs the knife, giving the appearance that he murdered Townsend. Thornhill flees and attempts to find the real Kaplan.
Meanwhile, a government intelligence agency in
Washington, D.C. read the news and realize that Thornhill has been mistaken for "George Kaplan", a fictional persona created by the agency to thwart Vandamm. However, Thornhill is not rescued for fear of compromising their operation.
Thornhill (Grant) stopping a truck while being attacked by the crop duster plane, in a screenshot from the film trailer
Thornhill sneaks onto the
20th Century Limited train. He meets Eve Kendall (
Eva Marie Saint), who hides him from the police. Kendall and Thornhill begin to establish a relationship but Kendall, unbeknownst to Thornhill, is actually working with Vandamm and his thugs. In
Chicago, Kendall tells Thornhill she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan at an isolated bus stop. Thornhill waits at the bus stop, but Kaplan never shows up. He is then attacked by a
crop duster plane. After unsuccessfully trying to hide in the fields, he steps in front of a speeding
tank truck and the airplane crashes into it, leaving Thornhill to escape in a stolen pickup truck when traffic stops.
When he reaches Kaplan's hotel in Chicago, he discovers that Kaplan had checked out and left before Kendall said she talked to him on the phone. Thornhill goes to her room and confronts her, but she leaves. He tracks her to an art auction, where he finds Vandamm and his thugs. Vandamm purchases a Mexican
Purépecha statue and leaves his thugs to deal with Thornhill. To engineer an escape from the thugs, Thornhill disrupts the auction by acting erratically; the police are summoned and take him away. When he tries to tell them he is the fugitive murderer, the police release him to the government agency's chief Professor (
Leo G. Carroll). The Professor reveals that Kaplan does not exist and was invented to distract Vandamm from the real government agent: Kendall. Thornhill agrees to help maintain her cover.
At the
Mount Rushmore visitor center, Thornhill (as Kaplan) negotiates Vandamm's turnover of Kendall for her prosecution as a spy. When "Kaplan" confronts Kendall, she shoots him "fatally" with a handgun (loaded with
blanks) and flees. Thornhill and Kendall meet in a forest. Thornhill discovers Kendall must depart with Vandamm and Leonard on a plane. When Thornhill tries to persuade her from going, he is knocked unconscious and locked in a hospital room. Thornhill escapes the Professor's custody, and goes to Vandamm's house to rescue Kendall.
At the house, Thornhill overhears that the sculpture holds
microfilm, and that Leonard discovered that the gun used by Kendall to kill Thornhill was filled with blanks. Vandamm indicates that he will kill Kendall during the flight. Thornhill warns her with a surreptitious note. Vandamm, Leonard and Kendall depart the house to board the plane. Thornhill attempts to follow, but is stopped by Anna, the housekeeper, who holds him at bay with a gun—until he realizes its the one loaded only with blanks. As Vandamm is boarding the plane, Kendall takes the sculpture and runs to the pursuing Thornhill. They flee to the top of Mount Rushmore. As they begin to climb down the mountain, they are pursued by Vandamm's two thugs, Leonard and Valerian. After a harrowing chase, Valerian falls to his death, while Leonard is fatally shot by the Professor, who appears on the scene with park rangers.
Later, Thornhill invites Kendall, now the new Mrs. Thornhill, onto the upper berth of a train, which then, suggestively, enters a tunnel.
Hitchcock's cameo appearances are a signature occurrence in most of his films. In
North by Northwest, he is seen getting a bus door slammed in his face, just as his credit is appearing on the screen.
[10] There has been some speculation as to whether he made one of his rare
second appearances, this time at around the 44-minute mark in drag as a woman in a turquoise dress on the train.
[11] In fact, the woman was played by
Jesslyn Fax, who went on to appear in many episodes of
Alfred Hitchcock Presents. She had previously appeared in
Rear Window.
MGM wanted
Cyd Charisse for the role played by Eva Marie Saint. Hitchcock stood by his choice.
[12]
Origins[edit]
John Russell Taylor's official biography of Hitchcock,
Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock (1978), suggests that the story originated after a spell of
writer's block during the scripting of another film project:
Alfred Hitchcock had agreed to do a film for MGM, and they had chosen an adaptation of the novel The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes. Composer Bernard Herrmann had recommended that Hitchcock work with his friend Ernest Lehman. After a couple of weeks, Lehman offered to quit saying he didn't know what to do with the story. Hitchcock told him they got along great together and they would just write something else. Lehman said that he wanted to make the ultimate Hitchcock film. Hitchcock thought for a moment then said he had always wanted to do a chase across Mount Rushmore.
Lehman and Hitchcock spitballed more ideas: a murder at the United Nations Headquarters; a murder at a car plant in Detroit; a final showdown in Alaska. Eventually they settled on the U.N. murder for the opening and the chase across Mount Rushmore for the climax.
For the central idea, Hitchcock remembered something an American journalist had told him about spies creating a fake agent as a decoy. Perhaps their hero could be mistaken for this fictitious agent and end up on the run. They bought the idea from the journalist for $10,000.
Lehman would sometimes repeat this story himself, as in the documentary
Destination Hitchcock that accompanied the 2001 DVD release of the film. In his 2000 book
Which Lie Did I Tell?, screenwriter
William Goldman, commenting on the film, insists that it was Lehman who created
North by Northwest and that many of Hitchcock's ideas were not used. Hitchcock had the idea of the hero being stranded in the middle of nowhere, but suggested the villains try to kill him with a
tornado. Lehman responded, "but
they're trying to kill him. How are
they going to work up a cyclone?" Then, as he told an interviewer; "I just can't tell you who said what to whom, but somewhere during that afternoon, the cyclone in the sky became the crop-duster plane."
[13]
Thornhill (Grant) on the run, attempting to travel incognito
In fact, Hitchcock had been working on the story for nearly nine years prior to meeting Lehman. The "American journalist" who had the idea that influenced the director was
Otis C. Guernsey, a respected reporter who was inspired by a true story during World War II when British Intelligence obtained a dead body, created a
fictitious officer who was carrying secret papers and arranged for the body, carrying misleading papers, to be discovered by the Germans as a disinformation exercise. Guernsey turned his idea into a story about an American traveling salesman who travels to the Middle East and is mistaken for a fictitious agent, becoming "saddled with a romantic and dangerous identity." Guernsey admitted that his treatment was full of "corn" and "lacking logic." He urged Hitchcock to do what he liked with the story. Hitchcock bought the sixty pages for $10,000.
Hitchcock often told journalists of an idea he had about
Cary Grant hiding out from the villains inside
Abraham Lincoln's nose and being given away when he sneezes. He speculated that the film could be called "The Man in Lincoln's Nose" (Lehman's version is that it was "The Man on Lincoln's Nose"
[14]) or even "The Man who
Sneezed in Lincoln's Nose", though he probably felt the latter was insulting to his adopted America. Hitchcock sat on the idea, waiting for the right screenwriter to develop it. At one stage "The Man in Lincoln's Nose" was touted as a collaboration with
John Michael Hayes. When Lehman came on board, the traveling salesman—which had previously been suited to
James Stewart—was adapted to a
Madison Avenue advertising executive, a position which Lehman had formerly held. In an interview in the book
Screenwriters on Screenwriting (1995), Lehman stated that he had already written much of the screenplay before coming up with critical elements of the climax.
[15]
Production[edit]
This was the only Hitchcock film released by MGM. It is currently owned by
Turner Entertainment—since 1996 a division of
Warner Bros.—which owns the pre-1986 MGM library.
Production costs on
North by Northwest were seriously escalated when a delay in filming put Cary Grant into the penalty phase of his contract, resulting in an additional $5,000 per day in fees for the actor, before shooting even began.
[16]
Filming[edit]
At Hitchcock's insistence, the film was made in
Paramount's
VistaVision widescreen process, making it one of only two VistaVision films made at MGM; the other was
High Society.
[17]
The car chase scene in which Thornhill is drunkenly careening along the edge of cliffs of
Long Island, high above the ocean, was actually shot on the California coast, and in
Griffith Park in Los Angeles, according to DVD audio commentary.
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