‘North by Northwest’

Alfred Hitchcock

North by Northwest is a film directed by the ‘master of suspense’,

Alfred Hitchcock. It was made in 1959 and follows the story of
advertising executive, Roger Thronhill (Cary Grant) as he is mistaken
for the government agent, George Kaplan. A series of events sees him
followed by both the police and a group of spies, led by Phillip
Vandamm (James Mason). He is helped along the way by Eve Kendall
(Eva Marie Saint), who mysteriously helps him escape both the police
and the gang as he travels across America, to Chicago, in search of the
real George Kaplan, in order to clear him self of a murder charge.

The film ‘North by Northwest addresses many traditional thriller

conventions. One of the first ones that is addressed in this film is that
of mistaken identity. When George Kaplan’s name is called, Roger
Thornhill puts his hand up, but this is not him claiming to be Kaplan,
but instead he is trying to get the attention of the waiter in order to
send a telegram to his mother. Vandamm’s men are watching him
Roger, who they have mistaken for Kaplan. This case of mistaken
identity leads to the protagonist being systematically disempowered
and drawn into a complex web of intrigue by the antagonist because
by being mistaken for George Kaplan he is taken to Vandamm, where
the antagonist believes he is Kaplan and so does everyone else,
meaning that the character is frustrated because he cannot escape
this web he has found himself caught up in because no one can believe
that he is not George Kaplan. The Mise-en- scene is very important in
showing this as well because, when Tornhill takes the police back to the
house to show them that Phillip Vandamm is a violent man who set him
up to be arrested for drink driving, all the thing’s which Vandamm and
his men had kept in the cupboards e.g. the guns and alcohol has all
been moved around. This change in setting does little to convince the
police of the story that Cary Grant’s character has told them to get him
off the hook and instead it only plunges himself deeper into the mess
he has found himself in. When they kidnap Thornhill and take him to
meet Vandamm. This case of mistaken identity is the whole basis for
the film and the situation the Thornhill finds himself in. Nothing in this
film would ever have happened if Roger Thornhill had not been
mistaken for George Kaplan. This mistaken identity also creates a feel
of frustration for the viewer on behalf of Thronhill because we side with
him when he is aggravated by the fact no one will believe that he is
not George Kaplan. The audience cannot see anyway that the main
character will escape it if no one believes who he really is and
therefore it creates a cycle that is difficult for our hero to escape and
therefore creates a much more complex plot.
This film also immediately falls in to the thriller sub-genre, innocent-on-
the-run. These sub-genres were determined by the thriller theorist,
Charles Derry. He believed that all thriller films slotted into one of the
six major sub-genres and in the case of ‘North by Northwest’, it is
innocent on the run. Derry said that a film would be organised around
an innocent victim, coincidental entry into the midst of global intrigue
and the victim often finds themselves on the run from both the villains
and the police. ‘North by Northwest’ fits this stereotype exact ally
because Thornhill, has just been framed for murder and is on the train
escaping the police and Vandamm’s men. By creating a character that
is on the run from the police and a mob it adds drama to a piece and it
also gives a film a nervous edge as we worry weather or not the
protagonist will ever be able to escape.

Throughout the film, ‘North by Northwest’ there is a series of false

leads, which throws both the antagonist and protagonist off the course.
Vandamms men are thrown off the course when they believe they have
captured Thronhill, thinking he is George Kaplan. Eve throws the police
off the course on the train, when she tells the police that she believes
that Kaplan got off the train, whilst she is hiding him in her bunk. Eve
also throws the antagonists off course when she pretends to shot
Roger in the café at Mount Rushmore. By including all these twist’s and
turn in the narrative, Hitchcock has created a more interesting plot,
which constantly keeps the viewer guessing at what will happen in the
film. These false clues also lead to more exciting situations, then
possibly would have happened if the characters had been presented
with the truth of this film. All these force leads are not unravelled until
the scene in the auction house, where Thornhill finally understands, for
the first time throughout the film, exactly where he lies in this position.
He knows that Kaplan is decoy made by the police and he realises that
Eve is Vandamm’s girlfriend. This is a turning point in the film as it is
the first time that Roger Thornhill starts to make things happen for
himself, whereas before he had just reacted to what the people around
him have done.

The music at the end of ‘North by Northwest’ is exactly the same piece
that is played during the pivotal scene at the end, when Eve and Roger
are escaping from Vandamm’s men on mount Rushmore. The music is
frantic, echoing the fact that the characters are being chased, adding
to the drama that Hitchcock is trying to create. By using the same
piece of music at both the start and end of the film, Hitchcock is in a
way following Todrovs ‘Theory of equilibrium’ because when we first
hear this piece of music, Thornhill is generally a happy person, going
about his everyday life and at the end the state of equilibrium has
been restored and we see Thornhill once again happy. This piece of
music is a fairly typical piece of music to accompany a Hitchcock film,
because it was composed by Bernard Hermann.

The main female lead in this film is Eva Marie Saint, who plays the
blonde, Eve Kendall. It was typical of Hitchcock one of his main reason
for using blondes was that he believed that a blonde depicted a both
good and bad women. Hitchcock normally depicted blondes as being
bad to start with and then she had to prove herself to be worthy of the
hero. This is very much the case in ‘North by Northwest’ because Eve
starts off as an enigma and the audience questions who she is and why
she is helping out Thornhill. As we learn more about Eve we discover
that she is Vandamms mistress and the audience takes a dislike to her.
It is not until the end of the film when she then helps our hero and
escapes with him, that she turns the audience’s opinion around of her.
By using a blonde Hitchcock also fit’s the stereotype of the blonde
‘bombshell’ and her sexuality lures in Thornhill. It s his inability to
resist Kendall’s charm that shows us Thornhill’s flaw and the control
that she has over Roger that means our protagonist makes many of the
choices he does make, for example Roger Thornhill would never have
gone to the crop field, where the planned attempt to kill Thornhill is
carried out. Hitchcock favoured using blondes in his films because he
believed, ‘blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that
shows up the bloody footprints.’

One convention that Hitchcock’s, ‘North by Northwest’ definitely meets

is that there is a murder at the core of the thriller. The murder of the
real George Kaplan, is what leads to the nationwide hunt for Thornhill,
by the police. By putting a murder at the core of ‘North by Northwest’,
it not only reminds the viewer that the film, which at points can be
comedic, is still a thriller. This murder also leads to our protagonist
having to go on the run from the police. This murder is the basis for
everything that follows in the rest of the story, because if he had not
been accused of murder he would never have got on the train and
meet Eve and we would never have had the series of events that
followed. The murder also shows the viewer what Vandamm’s men are
capable of and shows that they are successful villains because if they
can kill someone who is an official at the United Nations, they can kill
our hero. This makes the viewer fear for the safety of Roger Thornhill,
who we want to defeat these men. It was very important for Hitchcock
to have successful villains involved in a horror as he believed that ‘the
more successful the villain, the more successful the picture’.

In this film there is a element of comedy to the film. This is unusual for
most thriller films, but not in the case of Hitchcock, who often used
comedy in his films. Hitchcock believed that ‘the root of all good films
lie in melodrama’. This meant that Hitchcock took everyday events and
 showed a more sinister side to them whilst still using comedy to show
the lighter side of menacing events. In ‘North by Northwest’, Hitchcock
has proved this to be the case because when Cary Grant’s character is
being arrested for drink driving, he crawls up on the table in a drunken
state. By using comedy in this film, Hitchcock has managed to shows
that serious things do happen in this world, yet he manages not to
dampen the spirits of the audience too much as he still had joke’s
weaved into the film through. The comedy also helps keep an everyday
aspect to a film that some may find hard to believe and it also helps
the viewer relate with the character much better because most of the
viewers would not have been faced with the situation of being on the
run form a police and a violent mob, but yet we can relate to the
comedy aspects of the film.

Another way that Hitchcock has made this film seem realistic is by
having everyday events taking place in ordinary situations. When
Roger Thornhill is captured by Vandamm’s men, he is sitting in a
restaurant. By using everyday events this makes the events seem
more real to the viewer as they feel that these things could happen to
anyone, anywhere, which instantly scares the viewer. By using
everyday scene’s it also helps keep a perspective on the stories
because we are not so far removed from where these stories are set.

Like most film’s, towards the event of ‘North by Northwest’ there is a

very dramatic, pivotal scene in the film, where our protagonist is in
peril. Vandamm eventually finds out that Eve is a spy and he plans to
kill her, learning this Roger convinces Eve to run away with him. Eve
and Roger are then running away from Vandamm’s men on the cliffs of
mount Rushmore. Thornhill falls and is hanging onto the cliffs by his
fingertips and one of Vandamms men is standing on his hand, willing
him to fall. The character is left to wondering what will happen to
Thornhill and we are anxious for our hero. Just as we think that
Thornhill will fall, Vandamm’s man is shot but the CIA, who are on
Kendall and Thornhill’s side, and our two heroes are saved. A scene like
is the climax to all the drama that has been building up throughout the
film and is the happy ending restores the state of equilibrium.