10/14/10 - North by Northwest

North by Northwest (1959, 131 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053125/

This was probably the most anticipated film I put on the Thriller October list. It's one of the most famous films ever and usually regarded as one of Hitchcock's best so I was anxious to see how it matched up with some of the other stuff.

The film immediately throws the viewer into Roger O. Thornhill's (Cary Grant) life as he is mistaken for a spy. The film then twists and turns as it follows Thornhill's attempted escapes from those chasing him: Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) and his cronies Leonard (Martin Landau), Valerian (Adam Williams), and Licht (Robert Ellenstein). It turns out that things get even more complicated when Vandamm's love interest Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) turns out to be a government agent working for The Professor (Leo G. Carroll).

There's a couple things that stand out to me about North by Northwest. First is the complicated plot. It might come off as twisting and turning and confusing but it's really pretty simple once you get watching it. Another thing it does great is that it completely throws the viewer into this confusing situation for Thornhill. He's at a total loss of words as everyone questions him and he has no idea what is going on around him. Hitchcock captures this confusion really well and Grant does a great job in the acting department here. The other great thing about the movie is how excellent a couple scenes are. While I felt that Psycho was superb because it kept a constant and unsettling tension running throughout, I felt that North by Northwest approached the genre differently. Here, I noticed quite a few lulls but these were paced out by perfect scenes every now and then. More on those later.

One thing that's become common in these Hitchcock movies I've seen lately is the amazing acting. Grant is the headline actor here and he does a great job. I've already alluded to the way that he captures the confused feeling of Thornhill so well but he also has a unmistakable charisma and wit to his character that makes him extremely likable. The other main star is Saint as Kendall. Saint like Novak before her has this odd charm about her. She's not extremely sexual like Novak nor is she drop dead gorgeous like Grace Kelly in Rear Window. However, the dialogue is highly suggestive (I seriously cannot believe how some of these lines were allowed back in 1959) and Saint gives these lines the exact inflection needed to make her performance mesmerizing in its own way. Again I'm reminded of the sad fact that "great actress" and "beautiful actress" seem to be two separate categories in 2010.

Now, on to the memorable scenes of North by Northwest. Surprisingly, the "perfect" scenes I was mentioning earlier do not include the famous crop dusting scene that I was most anticipating before the watch. Overall I just felt this scene was somewhat lacking once it started and how it ended. That's not to say that the setup to the actual action part wasn't great because it was. The complete isolation and tension was great, but once the airplane began "attacking" the scene lacked this tension and it just wasn't as good. Anyway, the first great scene that I think I'll forever associate with this film is the first interrogation scene of Thornhill by Vandamm. It's here that that feeling of confusion first comes through in Grant's performance. Mason does a good job too and it's just a great scene that sets up the movie really well and gets everything rolling really quickly. The other perfect scene in my opinion is the auction scene. Again, the element of confusion is important as Thornhill realizes some things (such as Kendall's ties with Vandamm) while also realizing that he's trapped by Vandamm's thugs. Essentially hopeless he comes up with the idea of getting himself thrown out of the auction so that he can be turned over to the police. It's also again highlighted by Grant's expert acting. And the final scene worth noting is the final action sequence. I don't know what mainstream films back in 1959 were like on the action front but this was still pretty exhilarating by 2010 standards. Well, okay, maybe it comes off as dated a little bit but the action and thrill is still there and it provides an excellent conclusion to the movie. Also, I might be making North by Northwest out to be a film that's fueled by three excellent scenes and nothing but rubbish in the middle. That's not true at all; there's tons of great scenes to be found (but also quite a few boring parts, especially to start the movie) all through the film. It's just that I wanted to give special mention to these select few for how amazing they were.

Overall, I gave this film a 9/10. North by Northwest just barely gets this score as it's actually pretty much the definition of like an 8.5 for me, but I feel like bumping it up because of the top-notch acting of Grant (and to a lesser extent by Saint) and the previously mentioned set of perfect scenes. It's not Hitchcock's best but I did find it to be the superb thriller I was expecting.