North by Northwest

For other uses, see North by Northwest (disambiguation).

North by Northwest
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAlfred Hitchcock
Written byErnest Lehman
Produced byAlfred Hitchcock
Starring
CinematographyRobert Burks
Edited byGeorge Tomasini
Music byBernard Herrmann
Production
company
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • July 1, 1959 (1959-07-01) (Chicago)[1]
Running time
136 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$4.3 million[2]
Box office$9.8 million[2]

North by Northwest is a 1959 American spy thriller film produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason.[3][better source needed] The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".[4][better source needed]

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 microfilm, which contains government secrets, out of the country. This is one of several Hitchcock films that feature a music score by Bernard Herrmann and an opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass, and was the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits.[5]

North by Northwest is listed among the canonical Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often listed among the greatest films of all time.[6][7] It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[8] After its first screening, reviewers for The New Yorker and The New York Times hailed it as comedic, sophisticated self-parody.[9][10]

  1. ^ "Chicago [Picture Grosses]". Variety. July 1, 1959. p. 10. Retrieved May 20, 2019 – via Internet Archive.
  2. ^ a b The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study
  3. ^ "North by Northwest". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved April 24, 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ Jaynes, Barbara Grant; Trachtenberg, Robert (2004). "Cary Grant: A Class Apart". Turner Classic Movies. Archived from the original on January 8, 2009. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  5. ^ Lee, Johnny C.; Forlizzi, Jodi; Hudson, Scott E. (October 27, 2002). "The kinetic typography engine: an extensible system for animating expressive text". Proceedings of the 15th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology. UIST '02. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery: 81–90. doi:10.1145/571985.571997. ISBN 978-1-58113-488-9.
  6. ^ "AFI'S 100 YEARS…100 MOVIES — 10TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION". American Film Institute. Archived from the original on September 15, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  7. ^ Sight and Sound. "The Greatest Films of All Time". BFI. Archived from the original on September 22, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024.
  8. ^ "Complete National Film Registry Listing". Library of Congress. Archived from the original on September 18, 2024. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  9. ^ Weiler, A. H. (August 7, 1959). "Hitchcock Takes Suspenseful Cook's Tour; ' North by Northwest' Opens at Music Hall". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 13, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024. Although they are involved in lightning-fast romance and some loose intrigue, it is all done in brisk, genuinely witty and sophisticated style.
  10. ^ Balliett, Whitney (August 8, 1959). "Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest," Reviewed". The New Yorker. ISSN 0028-792X. Archived from the original on May 26, 2024. Retrieved September 22, 2024. "North By Northwest," Alfred Hitchcock's new study of the vagaries of the nervous system under pressure, is the brilliant realization of a feat he has unintentionally been moving toward for more than a decade—a perfect parody of his own work.