North by Northwest Critical Review

North by Northwest is a thriller by Alfred Hitchcock. The film is about mistaken identity. Our protagonist is mistaken for a secret agent named George Caplin by a smuggler of political information named Philip Vandamm. Vandamm is after Caplin, who's identity is thrust upon the protagonist Roger Thornhill, because of his connections to an undisclosed government agency. Vandamm wants Caplin's information regarding possible government investigations. Soon Thornhill is caught in a murder rap and must find the elusive Caplin before the police or Vandamm's men find him. The script writing of this film is phenomenal, watching the film multiple times leaves you in awe of the forshadowing that Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman work into this film. This film is a great example of rising tension. As in the scenes when Thornhill has to escape the city, around every corner there seems to be a policemen or Vandamm cronies. Hitchcock employs long held shots for these scenes effectively conveying a sense of urgency to the audience. An enjoyable aspect of this film was the occasional wise cracks that come from Thornhill, as in the scene during the auction where after invoking a fight with cops to escape Vandamm's thugs he looks one in the eye as he is escorted out and says something to the effect of "better luck next time old boy." This wit and many others like it make this film a good roller coaster of emotions. When the love interest, in the form of Eve Kendall, is introduced there is even an aspect of romance that can be explored in the film. There are also some amazing shots in the film, I have always felt that Hitchcock has a wonderful sense of graphic awareness within his compositions and this film is a testament to that. I'll include some of my favorite screen shots from the film bellow.

The last two stills I included because they were representational of classical innuendoes in older films I would say. It pretty awesome that these two characters talk around having sex and kiss for less than a few seconds at a time because of film codes but at least the train gets to enter that mountain so smoothly.