Review – North by Northwest

I’m not enough of a Hitchcock connoisseur to say for certain, but for my taste this isn’t the director’s finest hour. To be sure, it’s a classy picture that stays interesting throughout. He even gets his cameo out of the way early so you don’t have to keep looking for it. However, the picture has a couple of serious flaws. Cary Grant is far too flippant to play the lead in a spy picture. I’m sure the idea here was that his “clever” banter would lighten up what otherwise might have been an oppressively grim drama. But often his little drunken jabs detract rather than merely distract. Perhaps they seemed more clever back when the movie first came out. But beyond Grant, the big problem here is that the picture is too big. Spies are more fun when they lead subtle, almost ordinary lives. Nothing like that here. We start off with the typical Hitchcock “wrong man” scenario, and by the time we’re done the hero has been chased by a biplane, suspended off the edge of Mt. Rushmore, and had no end of other equally implausible adventures. The biplane sequence is typical of the experience. It’s good suspense. It looks great. It’s a legendary moment in movie history. It’s also one of the all-time most ridiculous ways to kill a guy (so small wonder when it fails). That’s sadly typical of the whole overblown production. Mildly amusing