North by Northwest

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill ( Cary Grant ) has the bad luck to stand up just as a "George Kaplan" is being paged. From this point on, Thornhill's life is turned upside down. He is abducted by three mysterious men and whisked away to the palatial home of enemy spy Philip Vandamm ( James Mason ). Denying that his name is Kaplan, Thornhill is at a complete loss when Vandamm begins grilling him for information. Finally, Thornhill is drugged, tossed into a car, and sent careening down a treacherous mountain road. He escapes this death trap only when his car is stopped by a pair of motorcycle cops. Unable to persuade the Law that his stories of kidnappings and enemy agents is true—he can't even convince his own mother ( Jessie Royce Landis )—Thornhill takes the cops back to the mansion where he was held prisoner, only to find that Vandamm and company have cleared out, and that house is really owned by United Nation ambassador Lester Townsend ( Philip Ober ).Tracking down Townsend at the UN building, Thornhill tries to get the man's attention—whereupon Townsend is knifed to death, and the nonplussed Thornhill left holding the weapon! Now a fugitive from justice, Thornhill tries to escape via train. En route, he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall ( Eva Marie Saint ), who graciously hides him from the police. The apotheosis of Alfred Hitchcock 's Hollywood career, North by Northwest is fast, funny, and exciting. The film contains far too many highlights to detail in this limited space: favorite bits include the cropduster dusting where there aren't any crops, the riotous auction scene, the mid-film murder of a principal character (or so it seems), and, of course, that nailbiting Mount Rushmore finale. — Hal Erickson