:
Cary Grant,
Cary Grant,
Eva Marie Saint,
more...
:
Alfred Hitchcock,
Alfred Hitchcock
see all cast/crew...
: Not Rated
: Warner Home Video
: Classics, Chase, Espionage, Quest, Chase
: English, French
: English, French
see additional details...
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North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) (1959)
While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) (Bonus Disc) (1959)
Bonus Disc Features:
- The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style Documentary
- North by Northwest: One for the Ages Documentary
- Behind-the-Scenes Documentary Destination Hitchcock: The Making-Of North By Northwest - Hosted By Eva Marie Saint and Featuring Martin Landau, Screenwriter Ernest Lehman, Patricia Hitchcock and Others
- Stills Gallery
- Hitchcock Theatrical Trailers
- TV Spot
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| North by Northwest (50th Anniversary Edition) (Bonus Disc) (1959) |
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| crap crap crap
by alexjb
May 30, 2005 - 12:49 AM PDT
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2 out of 13 members found this review helpful
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i've seen "classics" that were worth watching even now; this is not one of them. i don't know jack about it's historical significance as a film, but i thought it was a total waste of my time.
the production values are terribly distracting, including cary grant in the middle of a super sunny day, lit simultaneously from above, below and all sides, so that not a shadow touches him, while the guy he's talking to is totally shadowed. don't even get me started on the mount rushmore stuff. ugh!
the banter between the characters was occasionally amusing, but the key plot points were really not believable- especially the key premise of cary and eva falling for each other so completely, so quickly. and, of course, brace yourself for lots of examples of male-dominated society.
i could have cut out a half-dozen of the scenes myself without affecting the plot much, but i don't even know that it would have helped the movie overall.
unless you're a hitchcock buff, or a "classic action film" buff, don't waste your time. |
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