Cary Grant
Eva Marie Saint
James Mason
Leo G. Carroll
Jessie Royce Landis
Martin Landau
North By Northwest is a suspense thriller that finds Cary Grant in the role of Roger
Thornhill, a Manhattan advertising executive mistaken for a spy. Considered by many to be the
prototypical pure action movie (creating the template for later James Bond and Indiana Jones
films), the film is a cross-country roller-coaster ride with Alfred Hitchcock at the helm. The film is
duly famous for several classic and indelible scenes, including the desert biplane encounter and the
Mt. Rushmore climax. The original title was The Man In Lincoln's Nose, which was
replaced by a reference to a line from William Shakespeare’s Hamlet (in which Hamlet says, "I
am but mad north-north-west."). The magical combination of Hitchcock and the debonair
Grant--who made four wonderful films together--makes North By Northwest a
suspense-filled standout.
When Thornhill finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, the world as he knows it
comes to an end. Suddenly danger threatens as the hapless businessman is targeted as an American
intelligence agent and set up as a killer. All of Thornhill's attempts to straighten things out only
make matters worse--and soon the desperate man is on the run from murderous foreign operatives,
the CIA, and the police. The supporting cast, including Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin
Landau, is uniformly excellent.
