North by Northwest (1959)

Film Review. I can't quite remember a recent thriller film which was this smart and this engaging. For one, the film throws a lot of questions. But unlike the more recent "thriller" releases, the film doesn't try to elude its audiences, throwing too many red herrings, and provide the answer in a timely fashion. An intellectual participation that doesn't mock its audience. Well, probably because in the last few decades the film industry lacks someone like Alfred Hitchcock to steer his audiences, or maybe i'm just too ignorant to notice. But like it or not, the fact remains.

In North by Northwest, Mr.Thornhill seems like an ordinary man, a working man, on his way to a dinner with friends while inscribing day's last notes to his secretary. He was kidnapped at the dinner and brought to a place belong to a certain Mr.Townsend where he was addressed as Mr.Kaplan. Puzzled, as we are, Mr.Thornhill refused to acknowledge that he was Mr.Kaplan and refused to cooperate. Mr.Townsend then ordered his henchmen to intoxicated Mr.Thornhill with a healthy dose of Bourbon and set him up for a car accident. However, Mr.Thornhill survives only to be captured by the police and then arrested for driving under influence. Claiming his innocence, Mr.Thornhill inscribed the last night events to his mother, his lawyer, and the police. Even more puzzling, when the police with Mr.Thornhill investigates Mr.Townsend residence, the party was addressed by Mrs.Townsend who recognize Mr.Thornhill rightaway as Mr.Thornhill (even though we and probably Mr.Thornhill has never seen her before) and said that he was indeed heavily drunk during the last night's party at Mr.Townsend's residence. When asked about Mr.Kaplan, Mrs.Townsend doesn't know anything, and it was further leave us and Mr.Thornhill about his real identity, the motives behind his kidnap, about who is Mr.Kaplan, about Mrs.Townsend's role in the events, about.. about..

The previous paragraph was in short, the first twenty five minutes of the film. We follow Mr.Thornhill's investigation about the said event at Mr.Townsend's residence for the rest of the film.

The film was best described as a detective film rather than a thriller. And like it not, intentional or no, if the film doesn't fail to hook your interest with its first twenty-five minutes, it would surely sucked you in, as you would love to understand the connection between Mr.Thornhill and the yet unknown Mr.Kaplan. This film therefore, would piqued interests from those who claimed had a certain penchant to detective stories. I was piqued. Further, the film had provided probably one of the eternal motion picture's still image (image above).

However, in my opinion, the film later went to a grey territory when it decides to involve some secret organizations and finally, a love story. From a smart detective film during the first hour to almost as low and as simplisistic as any Roger Moore's James Bond films during the next. I admitted that i had overestimated this film beforehand because it was the third highest reanked Alfred Hitchcock's film at IMDb's top 250 films of all time. I liked Rear Window even Psycho (the only other two Hitchcock's films that i've seen, i know, i know, got to see more of Hitchcock, and subsequently ranked higher in the list) more than this film.

Spotted Cameo: Mr.Hitchcock was known as the one who almost always appears in his own films. In this film, i was smiling when i saw him as one of the New Yorker who misses his bus at the beginning of the film.

My rating: **1/2 / ****