Alfred Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST

North by Northwest Released in 1959 Directed by Alfred Hitchcock Written by Ernest Lehman Music by Bernard Herrmann

Cast Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill Eva Marie Saint as Eve Kendall

James Mason as Phillip Vandamm Martin Landau as Leonard

Creation Alfred Hitchcock had agreed to do a film for MGM, and they had chosen an adaptation of the novel The Wreck of the Mary Deare by Hammond Innes. Composer Bernard Herrmann had recommended that Hitchcock work with his friend Ernest Lehman. After a couple of weeks, Lehman offered to quit saying he didn't know what to do with the story. Hitchcock told him they got along great together and they would just write something else. Lehman said that he wanted to make the ultimate Hitchcock film. Hitchcock thought for a moment then said he had always wanted to do a chase across Mount Rushmore. Lehman and Hitchcock brainstormed more ideas: a murder at the United Nations Headquarters; a murder at a car plant in Detroit; a final showdown in Alaska. Eventually they settled on the U.N. murder for the opening and the chase across Mount Rushmore for the climax. For the central idea, Hitchcock remembered something an American journalist had told him about spies creating a fake agent as a decoy. Perhaps their hero could be mistaken for this fictitious agent and end up on the run. They bought the idea from the journalist for $10,000.

Production The filming of North by Northwest took place between August and December 1958 with the exception of a few re-takes that were shot in April 1959. This was the only Hitchcock film released by MGM.

Production At Hitchcock's insistence, the film was made in Paramount's VistaVision widescreen process, making it one of only two VistaVision films made at MGM. The car chase scene in which Thornhill is drunkenly careening along the edge of cliffs high above the ocean, supposedly on Long Island, was actually shot on the California coast.

Themes Hitchcock planned the film as a change of pace after his dark romantic thriller Vertigo a year earlier. In his book-length interview Hitchcock/Truffaut (1967) with François Truffaut, Hitchcock said that he wanted to do "something fun, light-hearted, and generally free of the symbolism permeating his other movies.” The film's plot involves a "MacGuffin", a term popularized by Hitchcock: a physical object that everyone in the film is chasing but which has no deep relationship to the plot. Late in North by Northwest, it emerges that the spies are attempting to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets out of the country. They have been trying to kill Thornhill, whom they believe to be the agent on their trail, 'George Kaplan'.

Box Office Budget: $3.101 million Box Office: $13.275 million

Awards North by Northwest was nominated for three Academy Awards for Best Film Editing (George Tomasini), Best Production Design (William A. Horning, Robert F. Boyle, Merrill Pye, Henry Grace, Frank McKelvy), and Best Original Screenplay (Ernest Lehman) at the 32nd Academy Awards ceremony. Two of the three awards went instead to Ben-Hur, and the other went to Pillow Talk. The film also won a 1960 Edgar Award for Best Motion Picture Screenplay, for Lehman.

AFI Lists American Film Institute recognition AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies – #40 AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – #4 AFI's 100 Years...100 Heroes & Villains: Phillip Vandamm – Nominated Villain AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores – Nominated AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) – #55 AFI's 10 Top 10 – #7 Mystery Film