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North by Northwest

© Steve Honeywell

Okay, up until now, I've presented movies that your wife or girlfriend probably won't watch with you. All of that stops, at least temporarily, right now. This is a movie you can watch with anybody. There's nothing offensive in it, and there's even a love story to keep whomever you decide to watch it with interested. That it also has tons of action and is impeccably filmed by one of the greatest directors of all time is just a big added bonus.

The film is North by Northwest, possibly the greatest movie ever filmed by Alfred Hitchcock. You want the ultimate in cool from a movie actor? I give you Cary Grant in the lead role. You want the most perfectly, unobtainably beautiful blonde? I give you Eva Marie Saint. You want malice? I give you James Mason and Martin Landau.

The plot is a simple one with so many twists, turns, and convolutions that it becomes complex. However, it never becomes complicated, and it's very easy to follow what's going on at all times.

Grant plays a playboy advertising executive named Roger Thornhill. A case of mistaken identity results in his being pursued by a powerful criminal who is convinced that he is a government agent named George Kaplan. This criminal, the treacherous and deadly Phillip VanDamme (played by Mason) is an international smuggler who simply can't be caught because of his own cleverness and the care with which he proceeds. Sure that Thornhill is really Kaplan, VanDamme makes plans to dispose of this "government agent," a plan that goes awry.

From this point on, things become very difficult for poor Roger Thornhill. Trying to get to the bottom of things only embroils him deeper and deeper into the plot of the real government agents to catch VanDamme. It seems that no matter what he tries, he digs himself a deeper and deeper hole.

What makes this film work is that everyone in it, particularly VanDamme and Thornhill, is very smart. Thornhill does the right thing to get himself out of the troubles he is in time and time again only to have these things backfire. He tries to get help from the police only to discover that VanDamme has double-crossed him. He attempts to meet VanDamme only to have this backfire on him tragically, turning him into a fugitive. He flees by train cross country only to meet up with the sultry Eva Marie Saint, who, it turns out, is the mistress of VanDamme. Naturally, this digs poor Thornhill even further into the mess.

The copyright of the article North by Northwest in Adventure Films is owned by Steve Honeywell. Permission to republish North by Northwest in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.