DVD Review - North By Northwest

North by Northwest was originally released to theaters in the summer of 1959 by MGM and was directed by mastermind Alfred Hitchcock, one year before Psycho was released.

Roger O. Thornhill, an advertising executive, is mistaken for George Kaplan and is kidnapped by two men who take him to a house in Long Island to be interrogated by a man claiming to be Lester Townsend, when he is actually a foreign spy Phillip Vandamm. Roger keeps telling him that he has the wrong person, but Vandamm doesn't believe him and order his men to get rid of Roger. They force him to drink bourbon and put him behind the wheel of a car. Then the men chase after him, hoping that Roger will crash the car, but to their surprise, he gets away.

Knowing that he had no prove of what had happened, Roger decides to stop Vandamm from doing whatever he has planned to do. Roger had overheard that Vandamm was going to Chicago, so he hops on a train where he meets a lovely young woman, Eve Kendal, who turns out to be Vandamm's girlfriend.

After getting off the train, Roger needs to travel by bus, but he first has to wait for one to appear along a countryside road. That's when the famous crop-duster scene occurs; diving down toward the very road Roger is on. It seems that no matter where he goes there are people after him.

North by Northwest is a cleverly written thriller that takes you from New York to the top of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Alfred Hitchcock is one of the greatest directors in cinema history and his direction alone makes the movie standout from all others. There are great performances by screen-legends Cary Grant and James Mason that highlight this mistaken identity tale. The movie may be over fifty years old, but it is better than any movie released to theaters today. Men will like the espionage plot while women will enjoy the romance scenes between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. Besides for some mild violence, the movie is a clean-cut film, so older kids can enjoy watching this classic movie too.