History Film / NorthByNorthwest

* DrunkDriver: The bad guys force-feed Roger a quart of whiskey and put him behind the wheel of a car, sending him on his way. He somehow manages to avoid killing himself or anyone else, but gets thrown in jail. His mother and lawyer bail him out, taking these events to be his usual carousing hijinks over his frustrated explanation.

* ImpairmentShot: Roger is force-fed a bottle of whiskey and put behind the wheel of a car – as he makes a getaway we see the road from his seeing-double perspective, curving and going straight at the same time.

* SingleMaltVision: Played disconcertingly straight - after Roger is force-fed a quart of whiskey and put behind the wheel of a car, he's trying to escape his pursuers, and seeing the road before him go two different directions.

** Roger Thornhill.

* DaylightHorror: The crop-duster attack.

* ImpairmentShot: Roger is force-fed a bottle of whiskey and put behind the wheel of a car - as he makes a getaway we see the road from his seeing-double perspective, curving and going straight at the same time.

At 2 hours and 16 minutes, it's Hitchcock's longest film (other than the special extended DVD cut of ''Film/{{Topaz}}'').

One of Hitchcock's most popular films, ''North by Northwest'' was also a major stylistic influence on ''Series/TheManFromUncle''. (For one thing, that series had Leo G. Carroll playing a very similar character type in Alexander Waverly, and drew most of its "innocents getting caught up in international intrigue" schtick from this film.) And it has been seen by many as providing part of the template for the Franchise/JamesBond films that would follow in the '60s and beyond.

One of Hitchcock's most popular films, ''North by Northwest'' was also a major stylistic influence on ''Series/TheManFromUncle''. (For one thing, that series had Leo G. Carroll playing a very similar character type in Alexander Waverly, and drew most of its "innocents getting caught up in international intrigue" schtick from this film.) It's also been seen by many as providing some of the template for the Franchise/JamesBond films that would follow in the '60s and beyond.

One of Hitchcock's most popular films, ''North by Northwest'' was also a major stylistic influence on ''Series/TheManFromUncle''. (For one thing, that series had Leo G. Carroll playing a very similar character type in Alexander Waverly, and drew much of its "innocents getting caught up in international intrigue" schtick from this film.) It has also been seen by many as providing the template for the Franchise/JamesBond films that would follow in the '60s and beyond.

One of Hitchcock's most popular films, ''North by Northwest'' was also a major stylistic influence on ''Series/TheManFromUncle'': in fact, Leo G. Carroll, who played Alexander Waverly in that series, plays a very similar character (sobriquetted "The Professor") in the film, and the TV show drew its "innocent gets caught up in international intrigue" shtick from the film. It has also sometimes been called the first Franchise/JamesBond film.

* TheMountainsOfIllinois: The film features a treacherous drunken car chase along the Cliffs of Glen Cove, played in this picture by the cliffs of the California coastline. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky. Also, the crop-duster attack scene was filmed near Bakersfield, California, not in the middle of an Indiana cornfield, although the appropriate highway signs were transplanted. Indiana doesn't look as dry as it does in the movie, even during droughts. Hitchcock had someone scout locations in Indiana and Iowa, but it was decided that RealityIsUnrealistic and the California setting was closer to what Hitchcock wanted.

* ViewersAreMorons: The entire scene in which government officials explain in an extreme AsYouKnow mode to tell the audience what they already knew, including the fact Kaplan doesn't exist.

One car chase later, Roger escapes but is arrested for drunk driving. The following day, he takes the skeptical police and his equally skeptical mother (Creator/JessieRoyceLandis) to the Townsend mansion where he was abducted, only to find Vandamm gone and the housekeeper, who's another Vandamm associate, claiming that Roger stole the car after getting drunk at a party there.

Shortly after the film begins, Manhattan advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Grant) finds himself abducted by [[EvilMinions enemy agents]] working for the master foreign spy Phillip Vandamm (Creator/JamesMason), who is currently masquerading as the diplomat Lester Townsend. Through a case of MistakenIdentity, Vandamm believes Roger to be George Kaplan, an American spy who's been tailing him. When Roger insists he isn't the spy, Vandamm orders him killed. His henchmen, led by the sinister Leonard (Creator/MartinLandau), decide to [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident stage a fatal accident]] by forcing Roger to consume a full bottle of bourbon and then placing him at the wheel of a stolen car and sending him down a trecherously winding cliffside road.

* TheyDo: [[spoiler:Roger and Eve are husband and wife in the final scene.]]

* CasualDangerDialog: At the climax, Roger and Eve engage in witty banter while dangling by their fingertips from Mt. Rushmore.

* HeroStoleMyBike: After the crop-duster crashes, Thornhill steals the truck of a passer-by to get back to Chicago. * HighHeelFaceTurn: Eve, [[spoiler:although it turns out that she was a [[TheMole mole]] all along]].

* PlayingGertrude: Jessie Royce Landis (born in 1896) plays the mother of Cary Grant (born in 1904). In fact, at the time Landis also claimed 1904 as her birth year (which with their respective birth dates would've made Grant about 10 months ''older'' than her), and there was a minor scandal over her casting.

* FiveManBand:
** BigBad: Phillip Vandamm.
** TheDragon / TheEvilGenius: Leonard.
** [[TheBrute The Brutes]]: Valerian and Licht.
** TheDarkChick: The fake Mrs. Townsend.

---> "Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to, and I get, well, kind of ''unreasonable'' about things like that."\\

---> '''Roger:''' Apparently, the only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.\\

-->'''Vandamm''': It seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.
-->'''Roger''': Apparently, the only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.
-->'''Vandamm''': Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you.

---> '''Roger Thornhill''': If you fellows can't lick the Vandamms of this world without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back, perhaps you ought to start learning how to ''lose'' a few cold wars.

* SpiritualSuccessor: To previous Hitchcock films ''Film/{{The 39 Steps|1935}}'' and ''Film/{{Saboteur}}''.

* DeadpanSnarker: Roger Thornhill.
--> "Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theater this evening, to a show I was looking forward to, and I get, well, kind of ''unreasonable'' about things like that."\\

A classic 1959 thriller by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, in which an innocent man [[MistakenForSpies mistaken for a spy]] is [[TheChase pursued]] halfway across the USA by enemy spies searching for a MacGuffin. You may know it as "the one with the climax on Mount Rushmore." Or, better still, as "the one where Creator/CaryGrant gets chased by a crop duster," a scene which has often been {{homage}}d.