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North by Northwest

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For other uses, see North by Northwest (disambiguation).

North by Northwest
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alfred Hitchcock
Produced by	Alfred Hitchcock
Written by	Ernest Lehman
Starring	Cary Grant Eva Marie Saint James Mason Jessie Royce Landis
Music by	Bernard Herrmann
Cinematography	Robert Burks
Edited by	George Tomasini
Production company	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	July 28, 1959 (1959-07-28)
Running time	136 minutes
Country	United States
Budget	$4,326,000[1]
Box office	$9.8 million[1]

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".

Contents

 [hide] 

• 1 Plot
• 2 Cast
• 3 Origins
• 4 Production
  • 4.1 Filming
  • 4.2 Set design
  • 4.3 Costuming
  • 4.4 Editing and post-production
• 5 Release
• 6 Reception
  • 6.1 Box office
  • 6.2 Critical reception
• 7 Themes and motifs
• 8 Home media
• 9 Awards
• 10 Influences
• 11 Adaptations
• 12 See also
• 13 References
• 14 External links

Plot[edit]

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.

Cast[edit]

Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall James Mason as Phillip Vandamm Jessie Royce Landis as Clara Thornhill Leo G. Carroll as The Professor Josephine Hutchinson as "Mrs. Townsend" Philip Ober as Lester Townsend Martin Landau as Leonard Adam Williams as Valerian Edward Platt as Victor Larrabee Robert Ellenstein as Licht Les Tremayne as Auctioneer Philip Coolidge as Dr. Cross Patrick McVey as Sergeant Flamm Edward Binns as Captain Junket Ken Lynch as Charlie

Uncredited cast Maudie Prickett as Elsie the Maid Malcolm Atterbury as Man at the crossroads[8] Tol Avery as State Police Detective John Beradino as Sergeant Emile Klinger[9] Ned Glass as Ticket Seller Doreen Lang as Maggie, Roger's Secretary Nora Marlowe as Anna Ralph Reed as Bellboy Frank Wilcox as Herman Weitner Sara Berner as Telephone Operator (voice)

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]

The United Nations Headquarters is the site of a scene in the film.

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.