North By Northwest

Advantages: Great story, direction, screenplay, very entertaining
Disadvantages: Not as original or thought-provoking as some of Hitchcock's others

...North By Northwest is, at number 23 on the IMDB's greatest films list, one of Alfred Hitchcock's most enduringly popular movies. Made in 1959, it stars Cary Grant as a suave advertising exec fleeing from the police after being caught in the middle of a CIA undercover operation, even though Grant was about 55 years old when it was made! He plays Roger Thornhill, an average kind of guy, albeit with a very well paid job and his own personal secretary. He's going to the theatre with his mother in the evening, but first meeting up with some guys in a hotel for drinks. Suddenly, with no explanation, he is kidnapped and taken to the home of Lester Townsend. Much to everyone's bafflement, they begin calling him by the name George Caplin and asking him how much he knows about their plans. What plans? Who are these people? Who is...

l-m-n-o-p 12.09.2007 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

North by Northwest

Advantages: A classic Herrmann score in complete form
Disadvantages: most cues extremely short

...After Vertigo proved to be a flop in the box-office, Alfred Hitchcock turned his sights to the more commercially inclined comedy, North by Northwest. Although focusing more on comedy and thrilling action instead of the more hitchcockian psychology of Vertigo and Psycho, North by Northwest is by no means inferior to the more disturbed Hitchcock films. Starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, the film details how a businessman Roger Thornhill (C. Grant) gets his identity mixed up with a fictional man, "George Kaplan," designed to be a Government smoke-screen to shield the real undercover agent Eve Kendall (Eva Marie sSaint). The man soon finds himself trying to survive assassins, the police and a crop-duster plane, ending up falling in love with the undercover agent as they happen to bump into each other on a train and the climactic finale...

berlioz 01.09.2004 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest: Original Soundtrack

KLM and Northwest Airlines

Advantages: Good value for money, comfortable
Disadvantages: Everything is routed though Amsterdam

...I’ve read a few different reviews on KLM which suggest that their level of service appears to vary quite a lot and this ties in with my own experience. I travel on business quite a lot and recently flew with KLM from Edinburgh to Detroit via Amsterdam. I then flew up to Toronto and returned from there to Edinburgh, again via Amsterdam. On this trip, I experienced both a KLM regional airline (KLM UK), flew in both business and economy sections and also used KLM’s code share partner, Northwest Airlines, for the first time. I guess I sampled a fairly wide range of the KLM product on offer so I thought it might be worth writing an op on it. It was a long trip so it’s a long op – I’ve subdivided it into the different legs to make it easier to read and/or skip the bits that you may feel irrelevant...

Thamisgith 16.12.2001 (20.12.2001) · Read review
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Review of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

Before Bourne, before Bond, there was.. Thornhill??

Advantages: The first of the great Hollywood Thrillers..with all the frills..
Disadvantages: Tame for modern audiences

...Suave, good suits, action, pretty ladies? Believe it or not, someone got there before Bond. In 1959, at the peak of Alfred Hitchcock?s popularity he released ?North By Northwest? a comedy thriller starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and the wonderfully sibilliant James Mason. It garnered 3 Oscar nominations and was the 8th highest grosser for the year. However, 50 years on it consistently rates as one of the most popular movies of that decade and also of all time (any film ranked #28 on the internet movie database must have something good going on). It also happens to feature pretty high on MY list too: and heres why: During my late teens, action movies were all I lived for. I wanted to be an Arnie or an Indie, a rough and ready hero who could take a few licks and still prevail. Used to wear a padded lumberjack shirt with pride...

runningman77 25.02.2009 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

"Mother!" And I

Advantages: endless
Disadvantages: nahhhh

...Every year there is one film, along with The Great Escape and The Sound of Music, that is guaranteed to make my Radio Times highlighted list of "things I will watch this Christmas" (because obviously I need to see the other two for the 1,283rd time). That film is North By Northwest. And yet every year I would somehow manage to tune in 45 minutes after the start of the film and in my Allen-esque way, refuse to watch the rest (it's incomprehensible by then anyway). A hangover, a DVD and a year later, and having seen and loved it, this year... I tuned in right on time. :) Hitchcock's suspense/romantic comedy/drama is a film deserving of its classic masterpiece status. A case of mistaken identity casts Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) into a maelstrom of enforced drunkenness, cropdusting, mysterious ice queens and Mount Rushmore...

ruth_cole 29.12.2004 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

Im No Spy

Advantages: Great Hitchcock film
Disadvantages: None

...The advantage of having lived three score years or more is that we've seen most of the old films and know what a good film should be like. Especially those directed by the one and only Alfred Hitchcock. North-by-Northwest is one such film and with Cary Grant as the good guy and James Mason as the ne'er do well, you just know that it will be a good yarn with all the twists and turns of a good thriller. The film opens with Alfred Hitchcock ......... No! I'm not going to tell you. Try and spot him for yourself. By the sort of coincidence that happens all the time Cary Grant is mistaken for a spy and the chase begins. Followed by the counter espionage boss played by the actor who played Mr. Waverley in The Man From Uncle series, Cary Grant is led a merry chase across America dodging bullets, a rogue aeroplane...

jimbuck 16.12.2000 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

The Art of Survival

Advantages: A perfect piece of film making
Disadvantages: none

...1959 saw Hitchcock at MGM, distilling 25 years of experience to put together the perfect movie. If some of the scenes and scenarios seem familiar then you're right, with Hitchcock acting magpie-like, plucking his favourite moments from previous movies and reworking them to fit the mould of 'North by Northwest'. 'North by Northwest' is the best 'innocent-in-peril' Hitchcock feature, and certainly stands tall amongst his other works, and therefore the works of any film makers. A sparkling screenplay by Ernest Lehman (Sabrina, West Side Story, The Sweet Smell of Success) plots the course of advertising executive Roger O Thornhill as he attempts to stay alive and one step ahead of his would-be assassins. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has stumbled into a cold war spy game, after mistakenly being believed to have picked up a telegram...

dadmancat 06.04.2003 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

The Greatest Film of All Time

Advantages: Read the title
Disadvantages: Don't be silly!

...captures your imagination, you savour it. It takes you out of your boring, humdrum, everyday life (speak for yourself, CC!) and transports you to another world, far, far away. Even though the trappings may be familiar, they’re somehow more vibrant, more alive, when you see them up there on the big screen. North By Northwest epitomises this notion. It lifts you out of yourself and throws you up on to the screen. There is no moral to this story, no message; it is just pure entertainment. Alfred Hitchcock (and please tell me you knew that he was the director of this film) is known as the "Master of Suspense", and it is into this category that the film must fall. However, it is also a comedy, a romance, a spy movie, and a thriller. It is an action movie before there were such things, back when action meant more than violence. Roger O...

Crazy-Christian 24.03.2001 · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

N by NW - A direction to brilliance

Advantages: Cast, story, score...
Disadvantages: Possibly a little dated for a modern audience

...inadvertantly fallen into a dangerous game of cat and mouse between a covert US goverment agency and the villainous Vandamm. Can Roger stay alive long enough to prove his innocence? Can he play a hand in bringing Vandamm to justice? And what of the mysterious Eve - will Roger ever find out what she's up to? A routine spy thriller doesn't sound like much to get overly excited about and a routine spy thriller ISN'T somethign to get excited about - North By Northwest (N by NW hereafter) ISN'T a routine spy thriller though. The talent is undoubtedly present but that's no guarantee of success...we've seen that demonstrated all too often. N by NW is almost perfect for Hitchcock in that it allows him to spring surprises on us the audience seemingly at every turn. This is perfect material for Hitchcock as he's given the opportunity to place doubt in...

TheNeil 04.10.2000 (05.07.2002) · Read review
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Review of North By Northwest (DVD)

A great place to experience Northwest culture

Advantages: Good food, unique craft products, good portrayal of Northwest culture, lively
Disadvantages: Expensive parking, overcrowded on weekends

...only shows the character of the city and makes it seem more like the historical attraction that it is. The one downside I do have to note is that, located on First Avenue and pike, the market can be a little difficult to access by car without paying a large sum for parking. To avoid this I would suggest looking into public transportations, as a number of buses stop nearby. I have lived in Seattle my entire life and this market still never becomes boring to me. The vendors, delicious food and street musicians all create a lively journey into Northwest culture and history. The market is open year round from 10AM to 6PM and is also within walking distance of other notable attractions such as the waterfront, Seattle Aquarium and the first Starbucks store. I would definitely recommend it to anyone traveling to Seattle or to locals looking...

NowhereKid22890 14.11.2009 · Read review
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Review of Pike Place Market, Seattle