After crafting a filmography full of malicious mistaken identities and craven conspiracies, how does someone like Alfred Hitchcock let his hair down after decades of generating cinema changing suspense? Well, the answer is simply to take the piss out of almost every single cinematic trait that made him famous in the first place and somehow still manage to create a masterpiece while doing so.
The result was arguably Hitch’s most charming film which effortlessly delivers the type of tangled shenanigans we’ve come to expect from the master of suspense, but with a much more playful tone as Cary Grant’s boozy, irresponsible ad-man literally stumbles into an outlandish conspiracy that literally has nothing to do with him.
So fix yourself a drink – probably not bourbon – press your best suit and step into a world of spies, macguffins and a case of mistaken identity that invokes just as many chuckles as it does thrills and spills.
Advertising executive Roger Thornhill leads something of a charmed life as he regularly assaults his liver with his playboy lifestyle and swans around looking dapper as you please at the drop of a hat. However, his rather entitled existence is flipped like a tiddlywink one day when, in a one-in-a-trillion coincidence, he just happens to raise his hand in in the restaraunt of the Plaza Hotel just when a call comes out for a George Kaplan. This proves to be especially bad luck when you find out that Roger has just inadvertently convinced a couple of thugs lurking nearby that he’s actually Kaplan who is actually a secret agent; and before you know it, hes being bundled into a car and driven to the residence of Lester Townsend.
The unfeasibly aloof Townsend and his gaunt-faced right hand man, Leonard, pressure Thornhill into admitting that he’s Kaplan, utterly refusing to believe anthing otherwise, and when they don’t get the info that the beleaguered ad-man can’t possibly know, they try to arrange his death by getting him plastered (not exactly hard) and shoving him behind the wheel of a car aimed at a very steep cliff. Nevertheless, Roger survives, but finds himself in trouble for drunk driving, however, after making bail, our confused hero strives to untangle this bizarre conspiracy that he’s somehow blundered into the centre of. However, after tracking down Townsend to his job at the United Nations, Roger not only finds that this Townsend isn’t the man who had him kidnapped, but is promptly framed for his murder and has to go on the run.
It seems that Thornhill’s life is going from bad to worse and the only chance he has to clear his name is track down the actual Kaplan, and after hopping on a train to Chicago, he receives some welcome aid from the sultry Eve Kendall who seems to welcome some danger and intrigue entering her life. But in a world where no one seems to be who they say they are, can poor Roger actually afford to trust anyone?
In many ways, North By Northwest is the ultimate Hitchcock film as it concerns its bustling plot with so many tropes that the mischievous director loves to utilise, it’s like a thriller jackpot. There’s the central, major case of mistaken identity, of course, that tends to turn a confounded everyman into a wanted criminal; there’s Hitch’s trademark “icy blonde” who’s wayward free spirit tends to galvanise things to the next level; there’s a cabal of scheming villains and there’s the sense that absolutely nothing or nobody is what it orginally seems. However, this time around, the director presents all his usually themes and tricks in a noticeably exagerated and self referential way and not only is it a inspired idea to show off that you have a sense of humour about your craft, but it proves to be ridiculously fun to boot.
If there’s was any doubt that we’re in a more heightened state of reality than Hitch certainly delivers, it’s pretty much cemented the second we’re introduced to Cary Grant’s uncontrollably smug Roger Thornhill as he takes time out from his busy schedule of drinking to suddenly find himself in a sobering, nightmare senario. However, where other Hitchcock movies might have played up the anxiety inducing notion of being mistaken for a secret agent by villains who simply will not even consider that they’ve got the wrong guy, the director approaches things with a refreshingly breezy attitude. Combined with a ludicrously suave performance from Cary Grant – who seems to be suave-ing like he’s never suaved before – they make getting targeted by a Cold War war spy who has no compunction about having you killed seems like it’s a complete fucking gas.
Not only does Grant emerge from the whole ordeal with barely a wrinkle in that suit of his (a pretty nifty metaphor if you ask me), but he carpet bombs the entire flick with witty asides so cutting, he should have used one of them to shave instead of that tiny razor he has. Be honest, could you utter the phrase “Now you listen to me, I’m an advertising man, not a red herring. I’ve got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don’t intend to disappoint them all by getting myself “slightly” killed.” if your life is on the line? Realism is great, but it isn’t nearly as much fun as escapism. With both James Mason and Martin Landau on villainous hand to make the wit so dry, you could get parched just listening to it, the final piece of the puzzle is Eva Marie Saint’s gloriously duplicitous blond, who not only manages to match Grant for sass, but has some sizable secrets of her own.
Of course, no review of a Hitchcock film is complete with a passage where someone gushes about his visual style, and while it’s already been establish that he was pushing the audacity of the plot as far as it would go – if the incriminating photo of Roger, complete with knife and a deer-in-headlights look, isn’t supposed to funny, then I don’t know what is – he still busts out some major set pieces that probably went a long way towards helping craft the action sequences of today. Yes, the cropduster sequence is rightfully engrained in cinema history with good reason, but a climatic clamber over the faces of Mount Rushmore may be the most audacious thing Hitch has ever mounted save the petrol station attack in The Birds.
If there’s any trace of a flaw, it’s with the rather long running time, but even then, it’s fleeter of foot than some of the two hour plus action monsters that get released nowadays and it certainly has more character. A funny, jokey, celebration of all things Hitchcock, North By Northwest is certainly the direction to head if you’re looking for a pitch-perfect experience.
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