North By Northwest (1959)

Alfred Hitchcock: North By Northwest 1959

North By Northwest is a film based on an innocent New York advertising executive ( Roger Thornhill) being mistaken for a government agent by a group of foreign spies. he is pursued across the country while he looks for ways to survive and escape being hunted down. He is mistaken for a man called "George Kaplan" and he is kidnapped, taken to a house belonging to Lester Townsend on long island. In desperate measures to find out why they want him and what they are going to do with him he sets out on a mission to find "George Kaplan" and ask him himself! But on the way he finds himself a woman who he starts to like, she covers his tracks a few times but then he finds out she is working for the spies in which are trying to catch him... actually it gets even more confusing because she is actually on his side she is just working with the opposition to find out information. As well as trying to survive, trying to track down Kaplan he also makes it his mission to save the woman he has fallen in love with, this results in him rescuing her from the spies. Can it get more complicated? YES. The result turns out that George Kaplan isn't even a real person, it was all part of the secret services plan to get these villains away from the real secret agent that they are after, Thornhill and his woman run away together. 

North By Northwest is a thriller... HOW? 

"Thrillers are characterised by fast pacing frequent action" 

In North By Northwest this is shown in many ways, the first way would be the drunk car scene. 

As you can see in the picture above he does not look sober, or in a normal state to be driving a car. In this scene Thornhill was taken to long island to Mr. Townsend's house, he was forced drink down his throat, alcaholic drink which made him incapable of even walking let alone driving. The spies didnt want "kaplan" alive so to make it look like suicide they put a drunk Mr.Thornhill in the car and pushed the car on its way rolling towards the end of a cliff. This type of action from getting him drunk to dragging him and putting him in a car keeps the audience interested and constantly watching the film. 

Another example in North By North west would be not long after when Thornhill is trying to prevent being captured by the spies that he creates a scene in the bidding room. 

As you can see above he is being arrested. In this scene he is surrounded by the spies and he knows if he tries to walk out of the room he will be captured and they will most definitely try to kill him again. Therefore he creates a scene making inappropriate jokes and bids on items so that the hosts will have to call the police and he will be arrested. Therefore this is what he does, there is a fast pace as he keeps doing bad things so you don't know what he is going to do next, you do not know if the spies are going to get him before the police do and there is a lot of action! 

"Resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of the more powerful and better equipped villains" 
The bidding scene again is also a prime example of this however it is not the only one. Thornhill also has another way of displaying this is the film "North By Northwest".

This is when he is in Mr Kaplan's hotel room.

When he is in Kaplan's hotel room, he outwits the villain by playing along with there foolish games and pretending to be Kaplan therefore outwitting them.


UNFINISHED