"The Master of Suspense weaves his greatest tale!" This is North by Northwest. This thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and written by Ernest Lehman. This classic suspense film finds New York City ad executive Roger O. Thornhill pursued by ruthless spy Phillip Vandamm after Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent. Hunted relentlessly by Vandamm's associates, the harried Thornhill ends up on a cross-country journey, meeting the beautiful and mysterious Eve Kendall along the way. Soon Vandamm's henchmen close in on Thornhill, resulting in a number of iconic action sequences.
According to John Russell Taylor's biography Hitch: The Life and Times of Alfred Hitchcock (1978) suggests that the story originated after a spell of writer's block during the scripting of another Hitchcock project. Hitchcock had the idea of the hero being stranded in the middle of nowhere, but suggested that the villains try to kill him with a tornado. In fact, Hitchcock had been working on the story for nearly nine years prior to meeting Lehman. The idea originated from American journalist Otis C. Guernsey, who was inspired by a true story during World War II when British Intelligence obtained a dead body, invented a fictitious officer who was carrying secret papers, and arranged for the body and misleading papers to be discovered by the Germans as a disinformation exercise called Operation Mincemeat. Guernsey turned his idea into a story about an American salesman who travels to the Middle East and is mistaken for a fictitious agent. Guernsey urged Hitchcock to do what he liked with the story. Hitchcock bought the 60 pages for $10,000. Hitchcock sat on the idea, waiting for the right screenwriter to develop it.
Lehman became the scriptwriter following a lunchtime meeting with Hitchcock, arranged by their mutual friend, Composer Bernard Herrmann. Hitchcock originally wanted him to work on his new project The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), but Lehman left the project due to writer's block. Hitchcock was so keen to work with him that he suggested they work together on a different movie using Mary Deare's budget (without MGM's approval) even though he had only three ideas to set Lehman on his way: mistaken identity, the United Nations building, and a chase scene across the faces of Mt. Rushmore. Lehman knew the hero had to be an innocent man, but he couldn't figure out how the hero gets into trouble. Hitchcock ended his dilemma by recalling a story idea he heard at a cocktail party, an idea about some government agency creating a non-existent decoy agent to throw the villains off the trail of a real government agent. According to Lehman, he had already written much of the screenplay before coming up with critical elements of the climax. According to Lehman, the working title was In A Northwesterly Direction. The head of the Story Department at MGM said, Why don't you call it 'North by Northwest'? Lehman says that he and Hitchcock adopted that as the new working title, always assuming that they'd come up with something better. Other working titles included Breathless, In a North West Direction, and The C.I.A. Story.
While filming Vertigo (1958), Hitchcock described some of the plot of this project to frequent Hitchcock leading man James Stewart, who naturally assumed that Hitchcock meant to cast him in the Roger Thornhill role, and was eager to play it. Actually, Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant to play the role. By the time Hitchcock realized the misunderstanding, Stewart was so anxious to play the role. So Hitchcock delayed production on this movie until Stewart was already safely committed to filming Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959). So Stewart turned down the offer, allowing Hitchcock to cast Grant. Grant was initially reluctant to accept the role since he was fifty-five, but accepted nonetheless. During production, Grant found the screenplay baffling. Hitchcock knew this confusion would only help the movie after all, Grant's character had no idea what was going on, either. Grant thought the movie would be a flop right up until its premiere, where it was rapturously received.
Since its July 1, 1959 release date, the film would go on to become a critical and financial success, grossing $5,740,000 in North America and $4.1 million internationally. The film has been referred to as "the first James Bond film" due to its similarities with splashily colourful settings, secret agents, and an elegant, daring, wisecracking leading man opposite a sinister yet strangely charming villain. The crop duster scene inspired the helicopter chase in From Russia with Love (1963). It is listed among the canonical Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often thought of as the best amongst Hitchcock's "wrong man" thrillers. Additionally, it is listed among the greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In June 2008, the American Film Institute revealed its 10 Top 10 - the best ten films in ten "classic" American film genres. It was also voted #7 in the mystery genre, #40 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies, #4 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills, and #55 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition).
The film stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, Martin Landau, and James Mason. The film contains strong on sight and performance values. Grant tops his job in To Catch a Thief (1955) as the man who, and Saint is surprisingly effective as the woman who may or may not be on his side. Grant and Saint make ideal in the romantic leads.
Hitchcock has endowed the action with as much suspense as one might expect in a picture produced and directed by him; nevertheless, its story of a ad executive who sets out to establish his innocence by going on a cross-country journey to undercover government secrets, and constantly offers dramatic and comical developments. It is definitely a suspense piece one usually associated with the Hitchcock name.
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