North by Northwest is a 1959 American
spy thriller film directed by
Alfred Hitchcock and starring
Cary Grant,
Eva Marie Saint and
James Mason. The screenplay was by
Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".
North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle out
microfilm that contains government secrets.
This is one of several Hitchcock films that features a music score by
Bernard Herrmann and a memorable opening
title sequence by graphic designer
Saul Bass. This film is generally cited as the first to feature extended use of
kinetic typography in its opening credits.
It is considered one of the best Hitchcock pictures and one of the
greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the
National Film Registry by the United States
Library of Congress, as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Knowing that Kaplan has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day, Thornhill sneaks onto the
20th Century Limited. He meets Eve Kendall (
Eva Marie Saint), who hides Thornhill from policemen searching the train. Unknown to Thornhill, Eve is working with Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment with Valerian. In Chicago, Kendall tells Thornhill she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan.