North by Northwest

Hitchcock called this his “light-hearted” follow-up to Vertigo. I don’t know as I’d call it light-hearted, but it definitely is different in tone from many of his other movies. It’s another one of Hitch’s “regular guy swept up in espionage” movies, and easily his biggest and most expansive. Cary Grant is mistaken for an FBI agent by spies, and gets sucked into a web of smuggling, espionage, murder, and a nationwide manhunt. Grant is charming and cool, like an early George Clooney, but he also tries to push an Everyman mystique that just doesn’t mesh with his marquee idol looks and suave demeanor. Still, he’s impossibly likable. Eva Marie Saint, however, is far from the best Hitchcock Blonde, coming off a little too aloof and icy, and there’s a push to not to be and it feels forced. The plot itself is convoluted, and the movie probably needed a good 15-20 minutes trimmed from it. It’s got plenty of twists and turns to keep the manhunt aspect from getting worn out, especially the amusing art auction scene. But the whole package is just overlong and overstuffed, and nothing ever seems as dire or life-and-death as the movie wants it to be. If it sounds like I’m down on the movie, it’s only in the context that this one of Hitchcock’s movies that’s put in the rarified air of Psycho or Vertigo or Rebecca, and I don’t think it quite hits those heights. It’s still quite enjoyable, easily one of the best of his man-on-the-run movies, and the first where the execution matches the scope. It just isn’t the masterpiece I was expecting.