Starring: Ed Binns, Leo G. Carroll, Bill Catching, Philip Coolidge, Lawrence Dobkin Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1 Binding: DVD Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC Label: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: September 07, 2004 Running Time: 136 minutes Theatrical Release Date: 1959
Product Description: Cary Grant teams with director Alfred Hitchcock for the fourth and final time in this superlative espionage caper judged one of the American Film Institute's Top-100 American Films and spruced up with a new digital transfer and remixed Dolby Digital Stereo. Grant plays a Manhattan advertising executive plunged into a realm of spy (James Mason) and counterspy (Eva Marie Saint) and variously abducted framed for murder chased and in another signature set piece crop-dusted. He also holds on for dear life from the facial features of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore (backlot sets were used). But don't expect the Master of Suspense to leave star or audience hanging.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569670990
Amazon.com essential video: A strong candidate for the most sheerly entertaining and enjoyable movie ever made by a Hollywood studio (with Citizen Kane, Only Angels Have Wings and Trouble in Paradise running neck and neck). Positioned between the much heavier and more profoundly disturbing Vertigo (1958) and the stark horror of Psycho (1960), North by Northwest (1959) is Alfred Hitchcock at his most effervescent in a romantic comedy-thriller that also features one of the definitive Cary Grant performances. Which is not to say that this is just "Hitchcock Lite"; seminal Hitchcock critic Robin Wood (in his book Hitchcock's Films Revisited) makes an airtight case for this glossy MGM production as one of The Master's "unbroken series of masterpieces from Vertigo to Marnie." It's a classic Hitchcock Wrong Man scenario: Grant is Roger O. Thornhill (initials ROT), an advertising executive who is mistaken by enemy spies for a U.S. undercover agent named George Kaplan. Convinced these sinister fellows (James Mason as the boss, and Martin Landau as his henchman) are trying to kill him, Roger flees and meets a sexy Stranger on a Train (Eva Marie Saint), with whom he engages in one of the longest, most convolutedly choreographed kisses in screen history. And, of course, there are the famous set pieces: the stabbing at the United Nations, the crop-duster plane attack in the cornfield (where a pedestrian has no place to hide), and the cliffhanger finale atop the stone faces of Mount Rushmore. Plus a sparkling Ernest Lehman script and that pulse-quickening Bernard Herrmann score. What more could a moviegoer possibly desire? --Jim Emerson
Slow start, but a great movie... I had a hard time understanding the whole plot of this story. Apparently, Cary Grant's character is mistaken for a spy and kidnapped by James Mason's character and his gang. But this "spy" doesn't even exist, and it's up to Grant to survive and get these guys. He gets chased by a crop duster, gets mistaken for a murderer when the man beside him at the United Nations gets stabbed, and goes across Mt. Rushmore with Eva Marie Saint's character, who plays a spy and his eventual ladylove. This is full of suspense, despite its slow start. All actors play their parts well, and look for the usual Hitchcock cameo somewhere in the movie.
A truly enjoyable masterpiece... Mistaken by a couple of hired thugs for an international spy and innocent in the murder of a diplomat, Cary Grant (armed only with undeniable charms and seductive shape) flees across the most audacious places of the United States, pursued by appropriately menacing villains (led by suave cold-hearted head James Mason and his henchman young Martin Landau) and shadowed by government agents... Somewhere in between is the sophisticated, glamorous and mysterious femme fatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), whose unpredictable devotions tremble between the extremes of good and evil...
Will Grant slip away from his would-be killers? Does he clear his name after falsely being accused?
Directed by a genius behind the camera and a "master of suspense," and featuring intrigue, comedy, romance, and danger--the crime at the U.N., the lethal crop duster attack in the middle of nowhere, Grant's unusually good exhibition at a Chicago auction, the sequence at an automobile plant, and the impressive climactic hunt across the Presidential faces carved into Mount Rushmore--Hitchcock celebrated his golden effort with his fourth and final masterpiece after 1954's Rear Window, 1958's Vertigo, and 1960's Psycho.
The Greatest Hitchcock Movie and the Greatest Cary Grant Movie Easily the best Hitchcock or Cary Grant movie ever made--filled with suspense and comedy throughout. It works as well today as it did almost 50 years ago and doesn't seem dated. This movie can be watched over and over again with great pleasure. By now you know the classic cropduster scenes and Mt. Rushmore scene, but there are other great parts of the film as well. Other than it maybe being a bit long during the love scenes, this movie is picture perfect.
It's one of my top five movies of all time.
Can't Believe I'm Just Now Viewing This I've avoided this movie for years. I don't really know why, but what a mistake! The storyline may seem tired by today's standards because we've all seen it before. However, the acting, the lines, and the photography are outstanding... especially the photography!! There were some scenes such as as when Grant and the traveler are waiting on the bus to arrive that are just breathtaking.
Hitchcock and Grant!! Cary Grant has to be the quintessential Hitchcock male (if Grace Kelly is his blonde)! So suave and charismatic, he is just splendid as the playboy who is mistaken for a government agent. This mistaken identity (a favorite plot point for Hitch) leads Cary Grant on a cross country journey that culminates in one of the most unforgettable cinematic scenes at Mt. Rushmore.
Eva Marie Saint is splendid as the double agent helping and bumbling Grant along the way.
This is a truly great film: filled with comedy and mayhem, as well as murder and political intrigue. Anyone could fall in love with this movie.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Tony's Online Tips
Trevor
