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WARNER

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Alfred Hitchcock
Cast:
Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll, Josephine Hutchinson, Philip Ober, Martin Landau
Writing Credits:
Ernest Lehman

Tagline:
The Master of Suspense presents a 2000-mile chase across America!

Synopsis:
North By Northwest is a suspense thriller that finds Cary Grant in the role of Roger Thornhill, a Manhattan advertising executive mistaken for a spy. Considered by many to be the prototypical pure action movie (creating the template for later James Bond and Indiana Jones films), the film is a cross-country roller-coaster ride with Alfred Hitchcock at the helm. The film is duly famous for several classic and indelible scenes, including the desert biplane encounter and the Mt. Rushmore climax. The original title was The Man In Lincoln's Nose, which was replaced by a reference to a line from William Shakespeare's Hamlet (in which Hamlet says, "I am but mad north-north-west."). The magical combination of Hitchcock and the debonair Grant - who made four wonderful films together - makes North By Northwest a suspense-filled standout.

When Thornhill finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, the world as he knows it comes to an end. Suddenly danger threatens as the hapless businessman is targeted as an American intelligence agent and set up as a killer. All of Thornhill's attempts to straighten things out only make matters worse--and soon the desperate man is on the run from murderous foreign operatives, the CIA, and the police. The supporting cast, including Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, and Martin Landau, is uniformly excellent.

Box Office:
Budget
$4 million.
Domestic Gross
$13.275 million.

MPAA:
Rated G

DVD DETAILS
Presentation:
Widescreen 1.85:1/16X9
Audio:
English Dolby Digital 5.1
French Monaural
Subtitles:
English
French
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 136 min.
Price: $24.98
Release Date: 8/29/2000

Bonus:
• Audio Commentary with Screenwriter Ernest Lehman
• Isolated Score in Stereo
• “Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North By Northwest” Documentary
• Cast and Crew
• Stills Gallery
• Trailer and TV Spots


PURCHASE @ AMAZON.COM

EQUIPMENT
Panasonic 50" TH-50PZ77U 1080p Plasma Monitor; Sony STR-DG1200 7.1 Channel Receiver; Panasonic DMP-BD60K Blu-Ray Player using HDMI outputs; Michael Green Revolution Cinema 6i Speakers (all five); Kenwood 1050SW 150-watt Subwoofer.

RELATED REVIEWS

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North By Northwest (1959)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 17, 2009)

Once I read a letter in an Ann Landers column that related the frustrating experience of a reader. While I don't recall the overall point of the missive, I remember that this person visited Minnesota and was asked by a native where she lived. When the writer stated "Virginia", she was told that no such place existed and she must have meant "West Virginia". The moronic Minnesotan then apparently derided the Virginian because she didn't know where she lived.

Because I loathe being told I'm wrong when I know I'm right, this bizarre letter has stuck in my head for many years. A tale of mistaken identity, Alfred Hitchcock's North By Northwest takes that concept to an extreme.

At the start of the film, we find handsome, successful Madison Avenue ad man Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) at a lunch with friends. He happens to signal for a restaurant worker at the wrong time and is mistaken by thugs for someone named George Kaplan, and Thornhill's life immediately is tossed into a tizzy. The majority of the movie follows the action as Thornhill falls deeper and deeper into this bizarre world not of his making – a world that includes erstwhile lover and confidante Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint).

This kind of story wasn't fresh even in 1959 when North first appeared. Actually, one can see bits and pieces of other Hitchcock films cobbled together for it. That doesn't mean it's not a success, as it presents an exciting and compelling tale throughout its 136 minutes.

North works largely because Hitchcock paced it so well. Occasional moments dragged, but I rarely felt that the story wasn't moving ahead at an appropriate rate. Some expository moments slowed down the progress, but these remained pretty minor, especially considering the fairly convoluted nature of the plot. The tale of spies and double agents threatened to become messy, but it never quite went off-course.

In a lot of ways North feels like a prototype for the Bond films. The story works from a different angle, since Bond never gets stuck in situations that become so confusing to him, but the way the tale moves and the execution of the plot feels straight out of a 007 epic. There's risqué (for the period) sexual banter, lots of good one-liners, and some well-executed action scenes that put our hero in great danger; all of this will look familiar to Bond fans.

Grant plays Thornhill with terrific self-confidence and aplomb, which becomes both a blessing and a curse. For the most part, I like his performance. Actually, I really enjoy it, but I'm not sure how realistic it is. No, that's not true - I'm sure it’s not realistic at all, since Thornhill seems far too sure of himself and lacking in nervousness throughout this affair. Unlike James Bond, a regular person with no training in these sorts of endeavors probably wouldn’t respond so confidently and smoothly.

Nonetheless, it makes for great entertainment, even throughout the film's multiple plot holes and unlikely events. Normally when I'm interested in a movie, I'm able to "go with the flow" and ignore silly occurrences, but some of this one's bits did irk me.

Despite that, I genuinely like the movie and consider it yet another Hitchcock classic. I wouldn't place it quite on the same level as gems like Psycho and The Birds, but North By Northwest offers a terrifically entertaining and exciting experience nonetheless.


The DVD Grades: Picture B+/ Audio B+/ Bonus B-

North By Northwest appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this single-sided, dual-layered disc; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 sets. Though not without flaws, the image usually impressed.

In fact, one element was the main reason I had to drop my grade down from “A”-level: a big vertical line that showed up at the 52:05 mark. I tend to forgive defects found in older flicks, and if I’d simply seen a couple of small specks, I wouldn’t have docked the transfer. However, this line is so prominent and distracting that I didn’t think I could grant it an “A-“.

Otherwise I found virtually nothing to mar the proceedings. No additional source flaws cropped up through the film. Grain looked natural, and no other specks, marks or distractions appeared. Edge enhancement was minor, and I noticed no jaggies or shimmering.

Sharpness was usually quite good. Some shots displayed minor softness, but I felt those instances usually resulted from the film’s photographic style. Hitchcock tended to like a bit of soft focus, especially in terms of his leading ladies, so close-ups of Eva Marie Saint seem a little hazy.

That was intentional, though, and Hitchcock also deployed a bit of the same soft focus for Cary Grant. Both Grant and Saint played characters significantly younger than themselves, so the photographic choices attempted to distract us from that fact. I didn’t mind the visuals, though, and I thought the film exhibited very good definition. The light edge enhancement made wide shots a bit tentative, but they remained fine overall.

North went with a fairly monochromatic palette, so don’t expect a broad range of hues. Occasionally the film boasted vibrant reds, but otherwise, the flick remained pretty restrained. The colors looked fine within those constraints, and the brighter tones were terrfic. Black levels seemed nicely dark and solid, with good contrast to be seen throughout the movie, and shadow detail looked clear without any excessive opacity. Even with that pesky vertical line and some edge enhancement, this was a good presentation.

I also liked the nice remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack of North. The designers didn't go "audio happy" with this one, as much of the sound stayed in the center channel. The front side speakers opened up the image at times; we heard the music presented in stereo plus occasional positive use of effects like cars driving or planes flying. The surrounds contributed reinforcement of the score plus a few examples of ambient audio such as more cars and planes as they traveled toward the rear. It's an appropriately modest soundfield that nicely complemented the film.

Audio quality seemed strong as well. Dialogue sounded fairly natural and warm. Speech held up better than expected; intelligibility was excellent and no edginess seemed apparent. Effects were a little thin, but they appeared fine within age-related constraints, and they boasted pretty good low-end on a few occasions. The score sounded bright and reasonably dynamic. Ultimately the soundtrack betrayed some signs of its age but it nonetheless came across very well.

In terms of extras, we open with an audio commentary from screenwriter Ernest Lehman. He provides a running, screen-specific affair that looks at cast and crew, story and character issues, working with Hitchcock and Cary Grant, sets and locations, the film’s reception, and a few other subjects.

Lehman’s chat starts slowly, as he does little more than narrate for the first act or so. Matters pick up pretty well for a while, but Lehman peters out for roughly the film’s last hour. Some good tidbits still emerge, but there’s not a lot to keep up engaged.

All of which makes this a frustrating commentary. Lehman offers enough interesting tidbits to ensure the track doesn’t become a total dud. However, the chat falters too much for it to turn into a success. Fans will want to give it a listen, but they shouldn’t expect a lot from it.`

Next comes a documentary called Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North By Northwest. Hosted by actress Eva Marie Saint, this 39-minute and 20-second program provides a solid overview of the making of the film. We learn about it through interviews with Saint, Lehman, actor Martin Landau, director Alfred Hitchcock’s daughter Pat, and production designer Robert Boyle. Overall, it's a solid program that provides a nice wealth of information about the film. Special treat: Landau's killer impression of Hitchcock.

Another audio track appears on North as well. We get Bernard Herrmann's score offered in stereo. I listened to parts of it and thought it sounded quite good. Its inclusion will be a nice treat for film score buffs.

A few promos appear on the disc. We get a standard two-minute and 15-second theatrical trailer, a 60-second TV Spot and the "Hitchcock" trailer. This three-minute and 15-second piece follows along the same lines as similar ads for Psycho and The Birds in which the director himself introduces us to the film. It's not as much fun as those other clips, but it's a nice addition nonetheless.

The disc also features a Stills Gallery. It includes 44 shots from the production and also some from the spring 2000 creation of the documentary. These are decent but unmemorable.

Cast and Crew offers decent biographies of Hitchcock, Grant, Saint and James Mason. As is typical of WB DVDs, the section lists more participants than these four, but only their entries provide additional information.

North By Northwest isn't Hitchcock at his absolute best, but it's close, as the film provides a compelling mix of action, intrigue and debonair humor. The DVD presents the movie in positive fashion, with very picture and sound plus a few interesting extras. Bottom line: North By Northwest offers yet another fine Hitchcock DVD and it'll fit nicely between Vertigo and Psycho in your collection.

To rate this film, visit the Blu-Ray review of NORTH BY NORTHWEST

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