#55 - North by Northwest

When writing the screenplay for this 1959 amazing suspense film, writer Ernest Lehman wanted to write the ultimate Hitchcock film. And in a way, he did. It would be easy to say that Hitchcock's ultimate film was "Psycho," which came out a year later, but I think saying so would be a gross misunderstanding of the Hitchcockian technique. Sure, "Psycho" is his scariest film, and perhaps it's even his best film, but it is not the most Hitchcock-y. That prize goes to "North by Northwest."

A film that has jokingly been called "the first Bond movie," this film stars Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint in a spellbinding tale of mistaken identity that covers half of the country's landscape, starting in New York City and ending in one of the best climaxes ever atop Mount Rushmore.

Eva Marie Saint plays the femme fatale, a woman whose role is constantly changing as the movie goes along. It is clear exactly what Cary Grant is all about from the start -- the dapper, debonair gentleman he always plays. But Saint shape-shifts like a chameleon with every scene she's in, always keeping the viewer on his toes.

And then of course is the most famous scene from the movie, the crop-duster scene. Told (by the duplicitous character played by Saint, no less) to meet someone in an abandoned field in Indiana, Grant's character Roger Thornhill finds himself dodging a killer plane that obviously has his sights set on him. It is at this point in the film that we realize how much Thornhill's life is worth -- and how much hot water he is in, just for being mistaken for someone else and ending up at the wrong place at the wrong time. This is suspense.

I'm trying to think of where the movie fails, and it's difficult to locate an element that doesn't work perfectly. I guess I was a bit confused at the beginning when he is forced to drink a bottle of bourbon and go for a drunken drive around the shores of Long Island. But that was probably just on my part, thanks in part to the allure of Facebook.

Nothing in the film fails -- the main title sequence, the music, the scenery; I could go on forever. Overall, the movie is totally Hitchcock, and thus totally brilliant.