The most prominent feature from his stint at Warner’s, Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest is an enjoyable chase-ground thriller. Cary Grant leads as Roger Thornhill, the Madison Avenue advertising executive (a “madman” if you will) caught up in something far bigger than he ever imagined. James Mason provides credible support as Vandamm, a villain every bit as mischievous as his name would suggest, with Eva Marie Saint providing the archetypal Hitch-Girl Eve Kendall. One thing I have noticed through this recent double bill of North By Northwest and Vertigo is the prominence of the role of women in Hitchcock’s work. Obviously I wasn’t oblivious to the importance of women in his flicks prior to this, but the exact role with which they hold really struck me with these two films.

The script is perhaps the wittiest and charming piece that Hitchcock ever adapted, and while it occasionally leans into areas of self-reverence it is never overtly or ditractingly comedic. Innuendo is rife, and the film ends on the infamous train shot that many have taken to mean something quite different to a display of public transport, but again the innuendo never out stays its welcome or overdoes it. The script is filled with many a famous tome, with a personal favourite being the rapid fire exchange between Thornhill and Kendall, in which Thornhill outlines the reason for his divorce, in which “They said I led a dull life” proves the perfect punchline. 

Richard Thornhill;-  Now you listen to me, I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself “slightly” killed. 

Location was key in Hitchcock’s work, and no better is that shown than the use of Mount Rushmore in North By Northwest. As Hitch himself stated, location is a character in his work, and the way in which it moves the plot forward works very similar to that of how a regular character would. The scenes atop Mount Rushmore are complete thrilling, with the fact that Hitchcock wasn’t afraid of killing any of the main cast in his films proving to really add to the tension. 

A road movie by default, the world in which North By Northwest takes place is richly evocative of the American cinema of the latter half of the fifties, and a genuinely thrilling thriller.