North by Northwest

UPC: 883929064953

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: NR   Contains:[Mild Violence]

Summary: While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Category: Thriller

Awards: U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Color Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Color Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Color Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Color Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Color Art Direction – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Editing – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Picture – National Board of Review Best Screenplay – Edgar Allan Poe Awards Film Presented – Chicago International Film Festival

Features: Commentary by Screenwriter Ernest Lehman
New 2009 Documentary Reveals The Master's Touch: Hitcock's Signature Style
Acclaimed Feature Length Career Profile Cary Grant: A Class Apart
Explore in Depth the Movie's Innovations and Influences in the New North by Northwest: One for the Ages
Vintage 2000 Documentary Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest
Music-Only Audio Track
Stills Gallery
Theatrical Trailers
TV Spot

North by Northwest

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 11/03/2009

Audio: DTHD null, DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 136 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish,German,Portuguese

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish,German

Rebecca Flint Marx

Equal parts sly identity crisis, suspenseful cross-continental chase, and cool romance, North by Northwest is one of Alfred Hitchcock's most enjoyable films. Done with the irreverent brand of humor that the director made his trademark, the film balances somewhere between suspense thriller and urbane comedy, its considerable wit both complementing and fueling its intrigue. As memorable for the sexy, sophisticated banter between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint as for the famous crop-dusting sequence or the climactic chase atop Mount Rushmore, North by Northwest is one of those films that inspires any number of readings. Chock-full of phallic references, conspiracy paranoia, Freudian subtext (made particularly apparent in Thornhill's relationship with his mother, who in reality was played by an actress born the same year as Grant), and featuring a token sinister homosexual, watching the movie is like watching an ode to the forces at work against the single, successful white man in Cold War America. As played by the superb Grant, he's a glib, increasingly befuddled man who perfectly represents the film's breezy yet cautionary tone, a playboy and a mama's boy in one charming yet vaguely troubled package. His true identity, Hitchcock seems to be saying, is as open to question as the one he is forced to assume. For her part, Saint put her stamp on the Icy Sex Goddess role as Eve, allowing just the right measure of vulnerability to melt through the character's freeze-dried exterior. She provided an able foil for Grant, easily matching his personal brand of suave charm with her own. Their pairing was one of the most delightful in Hitchcock's films, elegant yet with a delicate tinge of frenzy. Elegant frenzy could describe the film as a whole: stylish and taut, North by Northwest is Hitchcock at his gleeful best. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Ken Lynch  Actor 
Harvey Stephens  Actor 
Carleton Young  Actor 
Sid Kane  Actor 
John Beradino  Actor 
Jack Daly  Actor 
Doreen Lang  Actor 
Carl Milletaire  Actor 
Olan Soule  Actor 
Jimmy Cross  Actor 
Ernest Anderson  Actor 
Jesslyn Fax  Actor 
Bobby Johnson  Actor 
Nora Marlowe  Actor 
Ralph Reed  Actor 
Bill Catching  Actor 
Tol Avery  Actor 
Lucille Curtis  Actor 
Paul Genge  Actor 
Len Hendry  Actor 
Maura McGiveney  Actor 
Harry Seymour  Actor 
Susan Whitney  Actor 
Sara Berner  Actor 
John Damler  Actor 
Tom Greenway  Actor 
Alexander Lockwood  Actor 
Helen Spring  Actor 
Robert B. Williams  Actor 
Taggart Casey  Actor 
Baynes Barron  Actor 
Patricia Cutts  Actor 
Ned Glass  Actor 
Robert Shayne  Actor 
Frank Wilcox  Actor 
Howard Negley  Actor 
Andy Albin  Actor 
Tommy Farrell  Actor 
Frank Marlowe  Actor 
Maudie Prickett  Actor 
Harry Strang  Actor 
Stanley Adams  Actor 
Malcolm Atterbury  Actor 
Walter Coy  Actor 
Sally Fraser  Actor 
Madge Kennedy  Actor 
James McCallion  Actor 
Dale Van Sickel  Actor 
Lawrence Dobkin  Actor 
Bernard Herrmann  Composer (Music Score) 
Alfred Hitchcock  Director 
Alfred Hitchcock  Producer 
Ernest Lehman  Screenwriter 
Cary Grant  Actor 
Eva Marie Saint  Actor 
James Mason  Actor 
Jesse Royce Landis  Actor 
Leo G. Carroll  Actor 
Martin Landau  Actor 
Philip Ober  Actor 
Josephine Hutchinson  Actor 
Adam Williams  Actor 
Edward Platt  Actor 
Robert Ellenstein  Actor 
Les Tremayne  Actor 
Philip Coolidge  Actor 
Patrick McVey  Actor 
Edward Binns  Actor 

Country: USA