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, starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason. The original screenplay written by Ernest Lehman was intended to be the basis for "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures".[3][4]

North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity: an innocent man is pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization that aims to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle microfilm containing government secrets out of the country. It is one of several Hitchcock films featuring a musical score by Bernard Herrmann and an opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass. The film 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 ranked among the greatest films.[6][7] In 1995, the Library of Congress selected North by Northwest for preservation in the National Film Registry for 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. ^ 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.
  4. ^ Freedman, Jonathan (July 8, 2015). The Cambridge Companion to Alfred Hitchcock. Cambridge University Press. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-316-30101-2.
  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. pp. 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.