North By Northwest (Blu-ray) (1959)

Editor's Note 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.

	Leo G. Carroll
	James Mason
	Cary Grant
	Jessie Royce Landis
	Josephine Hutchinson
	Philip Ober
	Eva Marie Saint
	Martin Landau
	George Tomasini - Editor
	Ernest Lehman - Screenwriter
	Bernard Herrmann - Composer
	William A. Horning - Production Designer
	Robert Burks - Director of Photography
	Merrill Pye - Art Director
	Alfred Hitchcock - Producer
	Alfred Hitchcock - Director

Total Film
"...NORTH BY NORTHWEST is sequence after sequence of breathlessly exciting and amusing entertainment..." -- 5 out of 5 stars 03/01/2000 p.86

USA Today
"...One of Alfred Hitchcock's most durable entertainments..." 09/01/2000 p.14E

Entertainment Weekly
"...The master's greatest toy..." 01/11/2002 p.30

Premiere
"...NORTH BY NORTHWEST is the paragon for every action caper that's followed." 12/01/2003 p.10