#69 North By Northwest - Don't just ask questions, go out and get the answers yourself!

1959. dir. Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll, Martin Landau.

I've said it once and I will say it again...I LOVE CARY GRANT!!!! There's just something about him that is so suave, so debonair, so, mmmmmmmm-sexy. Watching this movie was like falling in love for the first time. He plays a man mistaken for someone else and to clear his name he sets off to find some answers.

Villains in this movie are bad. Good guys in this movie are shady. You can't help but feel bad for Roger Thornhill (Grant) because he is constantly getting doubted by those who are supposed to be on his side. Even Eva Marie Saint played someone whose side was not quite clear.

I love how there were sexual innuendos in this film (and that apparently they had to redub the lines). I love that Cary Grant is so tan (eat your heart out George Hamilton!) and doesn't look orange! I love that Cary Grant is in this movie in practically every scene (as opposed to His Girl Friday where he wasn't in it nearly enough...and I love that I remembered the key scene because it was done in Sesame Street's Follow That Bird(crop-dusting bi-plane).

The story was really well done. The effects were great considering there was no green screen...movie magic eh? I remember going to Universal Studios and seeing how they did scenes similar to those atop Mt. Rushmore...It's impressive that technology in the late fifties made the chase scenes on the faces look real (and really dangerous). Of course no one can really film movies ON Mount Rushmore but the recreations were totally life-like!

Own it? Not yet but I'd like to own it.
Watch it again? Heck yes!
FYI 1212 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago - doesn't exist.
and according to imdb.com "Eva Marie Saint's line, "I never discuss love on an empty stomach," is dubbed over the line you can see her speaking on film: "I never make love on an empty stomach.""

#69 North By Northwest: Assault with a gun and a bourbon and a sports car

1959. dir. Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Leo G. Carroll, Martin Landau.

Seen it before? Yes.



One of Hitchcock's best-known movies. I'm sure everyone has seen it, or is at least familiar with the most famous scenes (like the plane in the cornfield, or the chase atop Mt. Rushmore).

Cary Grant plays Roger O. Thornhill, a Madison Avenue avenue ad exec who gets caught up in a whirlwind of murder and espionage due to a case of mistaken identity. See, he's out for drinks, and somebody thinks he's this guy George Kaplan, and so these guys (James Mason as the villainous Mr. Vandamm, and his various lackeys, one of was played by a young Martin Landau) kidnap him to try to see what he knows. He of course knows nothing, so they try to kill him, in the dumbest way possible: get him really drunk, then put him behind the wheel of a car. Needless to say the plan fails, and he merely gets arrested, and spends the night in the drunk tank. So at this point he could have just walked away, and I wonder why he didn't. But I guess then the movie would be over...

Anyway I don't want to say too much more because that would ruin the surprise. Oh yes, there's the obligatory love interest played by Eva Marie Saint. You know, I don't care how good looking someone is - if I was on the run from shadowy forces who were trying to kill me, and some woman I just met told me to go to some bus stop in the middle of nowhere, I don't think I would trust her. I mean, come on. How stupid are you?

Position on the list: 32
Hitchcock's cameo: Right at the end of the credits... he tries to get on a bus... you can't miss it.