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-->'''Thornhill:''' I don't believe I caught your name.\\
'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
to:
-->'''Thornhill:''' I don't believe I caught your name.\\
'''Professor:'''name.
-->'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
'''Professor:'''
-->'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
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-->'''Thornhill:''' I don't believe I caught your name.\\
'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
'''Professor:''' I don't believe I pitched it.
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Foot Focus was redirected. Examples not fitting a better trope are being removed.
Deleted line(s) 66 (click to see context) :
* FootFocus: Eve ends up taking her shoes off on Mount Rushmore. She even gets a close up of her stocking-clad feet.
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* {{Unishment}}: Thornhill intentionally gets himself arrested for disorderly conduct to escape the men at the auction who want to kill him.
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* WhammyBid: Thornhill places comically-low bids at the auction and gets confrontational about it, in order to get himself arrested [[{{Unishment}} and thus get a police escort away from his enemies]].
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* GivingThemTheStrip: Eve discards her scarf and then her jacket during the Mount Rushmore chase.
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* GivingThemTheStrip: Eve discards her scarf scarf, jacket, and then her jacket shoes in succession during the Mount Rushmore chase.
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* GivingThemTheStrip: Eve discards her scarf and then her jacket during the Mount Rushmore chase.
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*** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana (which, even during a drought, is greener than in that iconic scene).
to:
*** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana (which, even during a drought, is greener than in what you see, unless of course the drought happened to be pretty bad that iconic scene).year).
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* VisualInnuendo: Train and tunnel version.
to:
* VisualInnuendo: Train and tunnel This film features the "train going into a tunnel" version.
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* TheWindyCity
to:
* TheWindyCityTheWindyCity: We do go through Chicago on the way west.
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* DisneyVillainDeath: Valerian and Leonard (although it's arguable Leonard was already dead from the gunshot).
to:
* DisneyVillainDeath: Valerian and Leonard (although it's arguable Leonard was already dead from the gunshot).bullet).
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* ItWasHereISwear
to:
* ItWasHereISwearItWasHereISwear: When Thornhill takes the county detectives back to the house where Vandamm and his two goons had detained him. For instance, there are a lot of books where he remembered the henchmen getting a bottle of bourbon.
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* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him? Seven parking tickets.
to:
* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him? Seven unpaid parking tickets.
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* TheCorpseStopsHere
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seen missing a bus during the opening credits of the film, shortly after his name appears on the screen.
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seen missing a bus during the opening credits of the film, shortly after his name appears on the screen.
to:
* TheCorpseStopsHere
TheCorpseStopsHere: The style in which Lester Townsend is killed, turning Thornhill into a fugitive.
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seenmissing getting a bus during the opening credits of the film, shortly door slammed in his face, right after his name appears on the screen.screen in the opening credits.
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seen
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* RemonstratingWithAGun: Actually a knife, but the effect is the same. Townsend is surreptitiously stabbed in the back by one of Vandamm's henchmen as he talks with Thornhill at the UN. As he falls foward, Thornhill catches him, and seeing the knife pulls it out of Townsend's back. Only then does the large crowd around them notice what's happened, and the trope is duly invoked.
to:
* RemonstratingWithAGun: Actually [[RemonstratingWithAGun Remonstrating With a knife, but the effect is the same. Knife]]: Lester Townsend is surreptitiously stabbed in the back by one of Vandamm's henchmen as he talks with Thornhill at the UN. As he falls foward, Thornhill catches him, and seeing the knife pulls it out of Townsend's back. Only then does the large crowd around them notice what's happened, and the trope is duly invoked.
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A classic 1959 thriller by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, in which an innocent man [[MistakenForSpies mistaken for a spy]] is [[TheChase chased]] halfway across the USA by enemy spies searching for a MacGuffin. The most famous and memorable scene from the movie is the crop duster chase, which has often been {{homage}}d.
to:
A classic 1959 thriller by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, in which an innocent man [[MistakenForSpies mistaken for a spy]] is [[TheChase chased]] halfway across the USA by enemy spies searching for a MacGuffin. The most famous and memorable Probably best known as being that movie that had a climax on Mount Rushmore or more likely as "the movie where a character is chased by a crop duster," a scene from the movie is the crop duster chase, which has often been {{homage}}d.
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** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana (which, even during a drought, is greener than in that iconic scene).
*** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
*** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
to:
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Changed line(s) 36,37 (click to see context) from:
** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.
to:
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana (which, even during a drought, is greener than in that iconic scene).
*** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THATrocky.
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.rocky.
*** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.
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* IdiotBall: Not once, but ''twice'' the villains choose an overly elaborate method to try and kill Thornhill, from which he is easily able to escape: first by getting him drunk and putting him behind the wheel of a car so that he'll drive into the ocean and it'll look like an accident, second by running him over with a crop-duster in the film's most iconic scene. Hitchcock did acknowledge that the crop-duster scene is needlessly complex, but pointed out that no one thinks that [[FridgeLogic while they're actually in the cinema]].
to:
* IdiotBall: Not once, but ''twice'' the villains choose an overly elaborate method to try and kill Thornhill, from which he is easily able to escape: first by getting him drunk and putting him behind the wheel of a car so that he'll drive into the ocean and it'll look like an accident, and the second by running him over being the entire scene with a crop-duster in the film's most iconic scene.crop duster. Hitchcock did acknowledge that the crop-duster scene is needlessly complex, but pointed out that no one thinks that [[FridgeLogic while they're actually in the cinema]].
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* AffablyEvil: Vandamm.
to:
* AffablyEvil: Vandamm. May be some traces of FauxAffablyEvil in there, too.
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* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:''' Seven parking tickets.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:''' Seven parking tickets.
to:
* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:'''him? Seven parking tickets.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:'''
Changed line(s) 35 (click to see context) from:
* CaliforniaDoubling: the iconic crop-duster scene. Supposedly set in Indiana southeast of Chicago, but actually filmed near Bakersfield, California. Can't imagine why: if you actually drive into Indiana southeast of Chicago, you'd think, "Wow, this looks like where they filmed that scene from ''North by Northwest'' where Cary Grant was chased by the crop duster."
to:
* CaliforniaDoubling: the iconic crop-duster scene. Supposedly The entire crop duster scene was supposedly set in Indiana southeast of Chicago, but actually filmed near Bakersfield, California. Can't imagine why: if you actually drive into Indiana southeast of Chicago, you'd think, "Wow, this looks like where they filmed that scene from ''North by Northwest'' where Cary Grant was chased by the crop duster."
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* CoolTrain: The Twentieth Century Limited.
to:
* CoolTrain: The Twentieth 20th Century Limited.
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* MatchCut: One at the very end
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* SpiritualSuccessor: To previous Hitchcock films ''TheThirtyNineSteps'' and ''{{Sabotage}}''.
to:
* SpiritualSuccessor: To previous Hitchcock films ''TheThirtyNineSteps'' ''Film/The39Steps'' and ''{{Sabotage}}''.
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--> "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."
to:
--> "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."\\
"Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself 'slightly' killed."
"Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives, and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself 'slightly' killed."
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* FreudWasRight: In the very last shot, the train that Roger and Eve are on goes into a tunnel. They really couldn't have may it more obvious.
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* FreudWasRight: In the very last shot, the train that Roger and Eve are on goes into a tunnel. They really couldn't have may it more obvious.
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**Although, at one point, Roger does get on a Northwest Airlines plane, and apparently goes north.
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* POVCam: When a park ranger slugs Thornhill in the face on the Professor's orders, to prevent his detaining Eve.
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* TheCallsAreComingFromInsideTheHouse: Thornhill gets a call from the bad guys while casing "Kaplan"'s room at the Plaza Hotel. He then finds out from the hotel's switchboard operator that the call came from the lobby.
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** Actually, ''"North by Northwest"'' doesn't even exist on the compass. The only valid directions similar are ''North by West'' and ''Northwest by North''.
to:
** Actually, ''"North by Northwest"'' doesn't even exist on the compass. The only valid directions similar are ''North by West'' and West'', ''Northwest by North''.North'', and ''North-Northwest''.
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** Actually, ''"North by Northwest"'' doesn't even exist on the compass. The only valid directions similar are ''North by West'' and ''Northwest by North''.
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Renamed one trope.
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One car chase later, Roger escapes but is WronglyAccused of drunk driving. To clear his name, he goes to the UN, where the real Townsend is giving a speech. Roger, surprised to find that it wasn't Townsend who abducted him, is even more surprised when Townsend's [[TheCorpseStopsHere corpse lands in his arms.]] Now wrongly accused of ''murder'', Roger flees New York.
to:
One car chase later, Roger escapes but is WronglyAccused of drunk driving. To clear his name, he goes to the UN, where the real Townsend is giving a speech. Roger, surprised to find that it wasn't Townsend who abducted him, is even more surprised when Townsend's [[TheCorpseStopsHere corpse lands in his arms.]] arms]]. Now wrongly accused of ''murder'', Roger flees New York.
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** ShoutOutToShakespeare: Some theorize that the title refers to Hamlet's line that he's only pretending to be insane: "I am but mad north-northwest."
to:
** ShoutOutToShakespeare: [[ShoutOut/ToShakespeare Shout Out: To Shakespeare]]: Some theorize that the title refers to Hamlet's Theatre/{{Hamlet}}'s line that he's only pretending to be insane: "I am but mad north-northwest."
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adding Writing Indentation Clue
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* WritingIndentationClue: Thornhill is able to figure out where Eve is going by finding the impression of an address she wrote.
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->''The Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures.''
--> -- '''Ernest Lehman''', screenwriter
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/north_by_northwest_1959_68.jpg]]
A classic 1959 thriller by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, in which an innocent man [[MistakenForSpies mistaken for a spy]] is [[TheChase chased]] halfway across the USA by enemy spies searching for a MacGuffin. The most famous and memorable scene from the movie is the crop duster chase, which has often been {{homage}}d.
The film begins when Roger Thornhill (CaryGrant) is abducted by [[EvilMinions enemy agents]] working for the master foreign spy Vandamm (James Mason), currently masquerading as the diplomat Lester Townsend. Vandamm believes Roger to be an American spy, George Kaplan, who has been tailing Vandamm. When Roger insists he is not the spy, Vandamm orders him killed. His henchmen, led by the sinister Leonard (Martin Landau), decide to [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident stage a fatal accident]] by pouring alcohol down Roger's throat then placing him at the wheel of a stolen car.
One car chase later, Roger escapes but is WronglyAccused of drunk driving. To clear his name, he goes to the UN, where the real Townsend is giving a speech. Roger, surprised to find that it wasn't Townsend who abducted him, is even more surprised when Townsend's [[TheCorpseStopsHere corpse lands in his arms.]] Now wrongly accused of ''murder'', Roger flees New York.
After a train journey, where Roger meets FemmeFatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), and the famous cropduster incident, Roger eventually follows Eve to an auction where Vandamm is bidding on a statue. To escape the spy, Roger disrupts the auction, deliberately getting himself arrested by the police.
The police are ordered to take Roger to the Professor, an American spymaster, [[MrExposition who explains the plot]]. George Kaplan never existed; he was only a red herring, meant to divert the enemy from the real agent. While Roger's actions initially provided a useful inadvertent distraction, he has ended up raising Vandamm's suspicions towards the real spy, so the Professor proposes a complex charade to resolve the situation.
When this goes wrong, Roger and Eve end up being chased across [[MonumentalBattle Mount Rushmore]] by Leonard and Vandamm's other henchmen.
The movie was a major stylistic influence on ''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.
----
!!This film contains examples of:
* ActionSurvivor: Roger.
* AffablyEvil: Vandamm.
* TheAlcoholic: Thornhill himself.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Leonard. "Call it my women's intuition."
* ArtifactTitle: Early drafts of the script called for the final showdown to take place in Alaska, but no one could come up with a better replacement title after the climactic scene was changed to Mount Rushmore.
* ArtisticTitle: The opening sequence, designed by Saul Bass, depicts the credits sliding up and down the side of a Manhattan office building.
* AsYouKnow: The truth about Kaplan is explained incredibly awkwardly by the Professor to the only other people in the world who already know about it.
* BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon
* BigApplesauce
* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:''' Seven parking tickets.
* BondVillainStupidity
* CaliforniaDoubling: the iconic crop-duster scene. Supposedly set in Indiana southeast of Chicago, but actually filmed near Bakersfield, California. Can't imagine why: if you actually drive into Indiana southeast of Chicago, you'd think, "Wow, this looks like where they filmed that scene from ''North by Northwest'' where Cary Grant was chased by the crop duster."
** Because it's cheaper to film in California than take all the crew and equipment to Indiana.
** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.
* TheChase
* ClimbingClimax: The final fight on the Mount Rushmore.
* ColdWar
-->'''The Professor:''' War is hell, Mr. Thornhill. Even when it's a cold one.
* CoolCar: That Mercedes convertible they try to kill Thornhill in.
* CoolHouse: Vandamm's Frank Lloyd Wright-style abode in South Dakota.
* CoolTrain: The Twentieth Century Limited.
* TheCorpseStopsHere
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seen missing a bus during the opening credits of the film, shortly after his name appears on the screen.
* DaylightHorror: The crop-duster attack.
* DeadpanSnarker: Roger.
--> "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."
** James Mason more than keeps up with him as the AffablyEvil Vandamn, leading to some fabulous one-liners and plenty of SnarkToSnarkCombat.
--->'''Vandamm:''' Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First, you're the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he's been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn't commit. And now, you play the peevish lover, stung by jealousy and betrayal. 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.
* DepravedHomosexual: Leonard is [[AmbiguouslyGay implied]] to be one.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Valerian and Leonard (although it's arguable Leonard was already dead from the gunshot).
* TheDragon: Leonard
* EvilBrit: Vandamm
* EvilMinions
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The Professor
* ExpositionCut: When Roger is brought up to speed, we do not hear the exposition since we already know this stuff.
* FemmeFatale: Eve Kendall.
* FootFocus: Eve ends up taking her shoes off on Mount Rushmore. She even gets a close up of her stocking-clad feet.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: During the scene where Eve pretends to shoot Thornhill, you can clearly see a kid in the background plug his ears in anticipation. Eva Marie Saint notes in the making of special that there were other good takes, and she has no idea why that one was used.
* GambitPileup: Vandamm, the Professor, Thornhill and Eve have their own elaborate plans, which clash constantly.
* GoingByTheMatchbook: Roger writes a warning to Eve on his personal matchbook with his initials(R.O.T.) on them and secretly throws it next to her in Van Damm's house. When they first met on the train earlier Eve noticed his matchbook and asked what the "O" stood for. Roger's reply: "Nothing". This was a sly dig at producer David O. Selznick, with whom Hitchcock had regular battles for creative control; his middle initial also didn't stand for anything.
* HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection
* HeKnowsTooMuch
* IdiotBall: Not once, but ''twice'' the villains choose an overly elaborate method to try and kill Thornhill, from which he is easily able to escape: first by getting him drunk and putting him behind the wheel of a car so that he'll drive into the ocean and it'll look like an accident, second by running him over with a crop-duster in the film's most iconic scene. Hitchcock did acknowledge that the crop-duster scene is needlessly complex, but pointed out that no one thinks that [[FridgeLogic while they're actually in the cinema]].
* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: "I'm an advertising man, not a red herring."
* IndyPloy: Thornhill quickly becomes adept at making escape plans on the fly.
* InternalReveal: The audience learns the truth about Kaplan at the end of the first act. See PlotBasedVoiceCancellation for when Thornhill finds out.
* InventedIndividual: George Kaplan
* ItWasHereISwear
* KnifeNut: Valerian.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: From ''{{Hamlet}}'':
-->I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly,\\
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
* MacGuffin: Both the microfilm and George Kaplan, since the first two acts of the movie are about Thornhill and Vandamm both looking for the nonexistent spy.
* MistakenForSpies: The entire basis of the film.
* MommasBoy: Thornhill, at least to the extent that it's Mother who he calls to bail him out of jail and assist him in casing "Kaplan"'s room at the Plaza.
* MonumentalBattle
* MrExposition: The Professor
* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: "You're the smartest woman I've ever spent the night with on a train."
* PlayingGertrude: Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Thornhill's mother, was only seven years older than Cary Grant in real life.
* PlotBasedVoiceCancellation: The Professor explains the whole "George Kaplan" scenario to Thornhill at the airport, and his voice is drowned out by the roar of plane engines. This is actually a rather clever inversion of the trope, in that we the viewers already know about the stuff he's talking about, so making the conversation inaudible is sparing us from the redundancy.
* ProductPlacement: Northwest Airlines has a sign at Midway Airport.
** Which makes for a very subtle, nonverbal TitleDrop: Thornhill and the Professor fly ''north by Northwest'' from Chicago to Rapid City.
* RemonstratingWithAGun: Actually a knife, but the effect is the same. Townsend is surreptitiously stabbed in the back by one of Vandamm's henchmen as he talks with Thornhill at the UN. As he falls foward, Thornhill catches him, and seeing the knife pulls it out of Townsend's back. Only then does the large crowd around them notice what's happened, and the trope is duly invoked.
* SafetyInMuggles
* ShoutOut: Seeing Vandamm and Leonard together with Eve at the Chicago art auction leads Thornhill to comment, "Now that's a picture only CharlesAddams could draw."
** In the same scene Vandamm tells Roger that with all the roles he's been playing, he could use "a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio." Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau both studied there.
** ShoutOutToShakespeare: Some theorize that the title refers to Hamlet's line that he's only pretending to be insane: "I am but mad north-northwest."
* ShownTheirWork: When Thornhill and his secretary ride in a taxi from his Madison Avenue workplace to the Plaza Hotel, the view shown through the rear window is of [[http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=5917 the actual route between the two locations]].
* SissyVillain: Leonard refers to his suspicion of who the double-agent is as his "woman's intuition" and Vandamm comments that he thinks Leonard is jealous of his relationship with Eve.
* SorryOciffer: Thornhill is force-fed a quart of bourbon and put behind the wheel of a car on a cliffside road to kill himself. He manages to escape his foes, but gets caught by the police. At the station he absolutely admits that he's drunk, but can't get them to believe the circumstances.
* SpannerInTheWorks: Thornhill screws up both plans (see below) before being incorporated into them.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To previous Hitchcock films ''TheThirtyNineSteps'' and ''{{Sabotage}}''.
* StagedShooting: [[spoiler: Eve shoots Roger in the Mt. Rushmore restaurant with blank cartridges.]]
* TakeMyHand
* TraitorShot: Provides the page image.
* UnwittingPawn: Thornhill, up to a certain moment, is this to both the Professor's and Vandamm's {{plan}}s.
* VillainousCrush: Leonard apparently for Vandamm.
* VisualInnuendo: Train and tunnel version.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Licht, Vandamm's henchman wearing a hat, disappears without explanation midway through the film. In the script, he was one of the two men in the cropduster but there's nothing in the film to suggest this.
* TheWindyCity
* WordOfGay: Martin Landau stated in interviews that he portrayed Vandamm's henchman Leonard as a closeted homosexual who was secretly jealous of Eve Kendall's relationship with his employer. In the scene where he revealed to Vandamm that Eve was secretly working for the Feds, he commented, "Call it my woman's intuition if you will..."
* WronglyAccused
----
--> -- '''Ernest Lehman''', screenwriter
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/north_by_northwest_1959_68.jpg]]
A classic 1959 thriller by Creator/AlfredHitchcock, in which an innocent man [[MistakenForSpies mistaken for a spy]] is [[TheChase chased]] halfway across the USA by enemy spies searching for a MacGuffin. The most famous and memorable scene from the movie is the crop duster chase, which has often been {{homage}}d.
The film begins when Roger Thornhill (CaryGrant) is abducted by [[EvilMinions enemy agents]] working for the master foreign spy Vandamm (James Mason), currently masquerading as the diplomat Lester Townsend. Vandamm believes Roger to be an American spy, George Kaplan, who has been tailing Vandamm. When Roger insists he is not the spy, Vandamm orders him killed. His henchmen, led by the sinister Leonard (Martin Landau), decide to [[MakeItLookLikeAnAccident stage a fatal accident]] by pouring alcohol down Roger's throat then placing him at the wheel of a stolen car.
One car chase later, Roger escapes but is WronglyAccused of drunk driving. To clear his name, he goes to the UN, where the real Townsend is giving a speech. Roger, surprised to find that it wasn't Townsend who abducted him, is even more surprised when Townsend's [[TheCorpseStopsHere corpse lands in his arms.]] Now wrongly accused of ''murder'', Roger flees New York.
After a train journey, where Roger meets FemmeFatale Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), and the famous cropduster incident, Roger eventually follows Eve to an auction where Vandamm is bidding on a statue. To escape the spy, Roger disrupts the auction, deliberately getting himself arrested by the police.
The police are ordered to take Roger to the Professor, an American spymaster, [[MrExposition who explains the plot]]. George Kaplan never existed; he was only a red herring, meant to divert the enemy from the real agent. While Roger's actions initially provided a useful inadvertent distraction, he has ended up raising Vandamm's suspicions towards the real spy, so the Professor proposes a complex charade to resolve the situation.
When this goes wrong, Roger and Eve end up being chased across [[MonumentalBattle Mount Rushmore]] by Leonard and Vandamm's other henchmen.
The movie was a major stylistic influence on ''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.
----
!!This film contains examples of:
* ActionSurvivor: Roger.
* AffablyEvil: Vandamm.
* TheAlcoholic: Thornhill himself.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Leonard. "Call it my women's intuition."
* ArtifactTitle: Early drafts of the script called for the final showdown to take place in Alaska, but no one could come up with a better replacement title after the climactic scene was changed to Mount Rushmore.
* ArtisticTitle: The opening sequence, designed by Saul Bass, depicts the credits sliding up and down the side of a Manhattan office building.
* AsYouKnow: The truth about Kaplan is explained incredibly awkwardly by the Professor to the only other people in the world who already know about it.
* BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon
* BigApplesauce
* BlatantLies: Thornhill's explanation for why the cops are combing the 20th Century Limited for him.
-->'''Roger Thornhill:''' Seven parking tickets.
* BondVillainStupidity
* CaliforniaDoubling: the iconic crop-duster scene. Supposedly set in Indiana southeast of Chicago, but actually filmed near Bakersfield, California. Can't imagine why: if you actually drive into Indiana southeast of Chicago, you'd think, "Wow, this looks like where they filmed that scene from ''North by Northwest'' where Cary Grant was chased by the crop duster."
** Because it's cheaper to film in California than take all the crew and equipment to Indiana.
** The California coastline stands in for that of Glen Cove, New York, where Thornhill was originally to meet his fate. The north shore of Long Island is rocky, but not THAT rocky.
** Actually, the corn fields look way too dry to be from Indiana. Even during a drought, the corn is greener than in that iconic scene.
* TheChase
* ClimbingClimax: The final fight on the Mount Rushmore.
* ColdWar
-->'''The Professor:''' War is hell, Mr. Thornhill. Even when it's a cold one.
* CoolCar: That Mercedes convertible they try to kill Thornhill in.
* CoolHouse: Vandamm's Frank Lloyd Wright-style abode in South Dakota.
* CoolTrain: The Twentieth Century Limited.
* TheCorpseStopsHere
* CreatorCameo: Creator/AlfredHitchcock is seen missing a bus during the opening credits of the film, shortly after his name appears on the screen.
* DaylightHorror: The crop-duster attack.
* DeadpanSnarker: Roger.
--> "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."
** James Mason more than keeps up with him as the AffablyEvil Vandamn, leading to some fabulous one-liners and plenty of SnarkToSnarkCombat.
--->'''Vandamm:''' Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First, you're the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he's been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn't commit. And now, you play the peevish lover, stung by jealousy and betrayal. 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.
* DepravedHomosexual: Leonard is [[AmbiguouslyGay implied]] to be one.
* DisneyVillainDeath: Valerian and Leonard (although it's arguable Leonard was already dead from the gunshot).
* TheDragon: Leonard
* EvilBrit: Vandamm
* EvilMinions
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: The Professor
* ExpositionCut: When Roger is brought up to speed, we do not hear the exposition since we already know this stuff.
* FemmeFatale: Eve Kendall.
* FootFocus: Eve ends up taking her shoes off on Mount Rushmore. She even gets a close up of her stocking-clad feet.
* FunnyBackgroundEvent: During the scene where Eve pretends to shoot Thornhill, you can clearly see a kid in the background plug his ears in anticipation. Eva Marie Saint notes in the making of special that there were other good takes, and she has no idea why that one was used.
* GambitPileup: Vandamm, the Professor, Thornhill and Eve have their own elaborate plans, which clash constantly.
* GoingByTheMatchbook: Roger writes a warning to Eve on his personal matchbook with his initials(R.O.T.) on them and secretly throws it next to her in Van Damm's house. When they first met on the train earlier Eve noticed his matchbook and asked what the "O" stood for. Roger's reply: "Nothing". This was a sly dig at producer David O. Selznick, with whom Hitchcock had regular battles for creative control; his middle initial also didn't stand for anything.
* HammerAndSickleRemovedForYourProtection
* HeKnowsTooMuch
* IdiotBall: Not once, but ''twice'' the villains choose an overly elaborate method to try and kill Thornhill, from which he is easily able to escape: first by getting him drunk and putting him behind the wheel of a car so that he'll drive into the ocean and it'll look like an accident, second by running him over with a crop-duster in the film's most iconic scene. Hitchcock did acknowledge that the crop-duster scene is needlessly complex, but pointed out that no one thinks that [[FridgeLogic while they're actually in the cinema]].
* ImADoctorNotAPlaceholder: "I'm an advertising man, not a red herring."
* IndyPloy: Thornhill quickly becomes adept at making escape plans on the fly.
* InternalReveal: The audience learns the truth about Kaplan at the end of the first act. See PlotBasedVoiceCancellation for when Thornhill finds out.
* InventedIndividual: George Kaplan
* ItWasHereISwear
* KnifeNut: Valerian.
* LiteraryAllusionTitle: From ''{{Hamlet}}'':
-->I am but mad north-northwest; when the wind is southerly,\\
I know a hawk from a handsaw.
* MacGuffin: Both the microfilm and George Kaplan, since the first two acts of the movie are about Thornhill and Vandamm both looking for the nonexistent spy.
* MistakenForSpies: The entire basis of the film.
* MommasBoy: Thornhill, at least to the extent that it's Mother who he calls to bail him out of jail and assist him in casing "Kaplan"'s room at the Plaza.
* MonumentalBattle
* MrExposition: The Professor
* OverlyNarrowSuperlative: "You're the smartest woman I've ever spent the night with on a train."
* PlayingGertrude: Jessie Royce Landis, who plays Thornhill's mother, was only seven years older than Cary Grant in real life.
* PlotBasedVoiceCancellation: The Professor explains the whole "George Kaplan" scenario to Thornhill at the airport, and his voice is drowned out by the roar of plane engines. This is actually a rather clever inversion of the trope, in that we the viewers already know about the stuff he's talking about, so making the conversation inaudible is sparing us from the redundancy.
* ProductPlacement: Northwest Airlines has a sign at Midway Airport.
** Which makes for a very subtle, nonverbal TitleDrop: Thornhill and the Professor fly ''north by Northwest'' from Chicago to Rapid City.
* RemonstratingWithAGun: Actually a knife, but the effect is the same. Townsend is surreptitiously stabbed in the back by one of Vandamm's henchmen as he talks with Thornhill at the UN. As he falls foward, Thornhill catches him, and seeing the knife pulls it out of Townsend's back. Only then does the large crowd around them notice what's happened, and the trope is duly invoked.
* SafetyInMuggles
* ShoutOut: Seeing Vandamm and Leonard together with Eve at the Chicago art auction leads Thornhill to comment, "Now that's a picture only CharlesAddams could draw."
** In the same scene Vandamm tells Roger that with all the roles he's been playing, he could use "a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio." Eva Marie Saint and Martin Landau both studied there.
** ShoutOutToShakespeare: Some theorize that the title refers to Hamlet's line that he's only pretending to be insane: "I am but mad north-northwest."
* ShownTheirWork: When Thornhill and his secretary ride in a taxi from his Madison Avenue workplace to the Plaza Hotel, the view shown through the rear window is of [[http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=5917 the actual route between the two locations]].
* SissyVillain: Leonard refers to his suspicion of who the double-agent is as his "woman's intuition" and Vandamm comments that he thinks Leonard is jealous of his relationship with Eve.
* SorryOciffer: Thornhill is force-fed a quart of bourbon and put behind the wheel of a car on a cliffside road to kill himself. He manages to escape his foes, but gets caught by the police. At the station he absolutely admits that he's drunk, but can't get them to believe the circumstances.
* SpannerInTheWorks: Thornhill screws up both plans (see below) before being incorporated into them.
* SpiritualSuccessor: To previous Hitchcock films ''TheThirtyNineSteps'' and ''{{Sabotage}}''.
* StagedShooting: [[spoiler: Eve shoots Roger in the Mt. Rushmore restaurant with blank cartridges.]]
* TakeMyHand
* TraitorShot: Provides the page image.
* UnwittingPawn: Thornhill, up to a certain moment, is this to both the Professor's and Vandamm's {{plan}}s.
* VillainousCrush: Leonard apparently for Vandamm.
* VisualInnuendo: Train and tunnel version.
* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Licht, Vandamm's henchman wearing a hat, disappears without explanation midway through the film. In the script, he was one of the two men in the cropduster but there's nothing in the film to suggest this.
* TheWindyCity
* WordOfGay: Martin Landau stated in interviews that he portrayed Vandamm's henchman Leonard as a closeted homosexual who was secretly jealous of Eve Kendall's relationship with his employer. In the scene where he revealed to Vandamm that Eve was secretly working for the Feds, he commented, "Call it my woman's intuition if you will..."
* WronglyAccused
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