History Film / NorthByNorthwest

* FailingATaxi: The film begins in New York City - a man hails a cab, and Roger cuts in with his secretary, claiming she's pregnant, and takes it. She chides Roger, who assures her his lie let the guy think he was doing them a favor.

* ActionSurvivor: Roger. One poorly-timed summon at a restaurant and he's thrust into a life-threatening conspiracy involving ColdWar espionage.

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

After a train journey to Chicago, 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.

* RealityEnsues: The first plan to kill Thornhill involves pouring a whole bottle of bourbon down his throat and trying to make it look like he killed himself drink-driving. Thornhill manages to escape, but soon overtakes a police car and gets arrested for drink-driving.

** Emile Klinger, the officer who arrests Thornhill for drink-driving after the first attempt on his life. The man's surname refers to Thornhill's attempts to cling to reality as at first he doesn't know what is going on. Also doubles as Foreshadowing [[spoiler:to the Mount Rushmore scenes at the end of the film]].

* LadyInRed: Eve wears a red dress in the climax of the movie, and when Thornhill confronts her after the crop-duster sequence.

** Thornhill and Eve again in the woods in South Dakota after the auction scene.
[[spoiler: Thornhill and Eve [[RuleOfThree again]] in the final scene.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: After [[spoiler: Roger rescues Eva and they marry, he helps her into the sleeping compartment of another train.]] We then see the train entering a tunnel. Why? No reason.

** When Thornhill and his mother go to the Plaza to investigate Kaplan's hotel room, it's said that the bed has not been slept in, and Thronhill says it's like no one seems to have seen Kaplan. That's because they haven't. Kaplan doesn't exist.

** Thornhill on the phone to his mother in Grand Central Station foreshadows the crop-dusting sequence once he arrives in Chicago as well as his first meeting with Eve: "The train, it's safer... Well, because there's no place to hide on a plane if anyone should recognize me... Oh, you want me to jump off a moving plane?"

* 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.

* 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 cropduster 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.

* MumLooksLikeASister: Creator/CaryGrant was 55 years-old at the time. Jessie Royce Landis, who played his mother, was 63 years-old, meaning she would have to have given birth when she was 8 years old.
* MysteriousMiddleInitial: Roger O Thornhill. Turns out the O doesn't stand for anything.

** [[spoiler:Towards the end, Eve has one when she sees and recognises Thornhill's matchbook he had thrown down to her, and again when she reads the message inside it.]]

* TheAlcoholic: Thornhill himself. Though he insists he ''wasn't'' trying to get drunk this time, his mother's verbal scoffing indicates that she's not convinced.

* LiteraryAllusionTitle: From ''{{Hamlet}}'':

* HeroesGoneFishing: Before being kidnapped by Valerian and Licht at the Plaza, Thornhill had plans to attend a performance at the Wintergarden Theatre. He is a little annoyed he doesn't make it there.

* RevealingHug: Roger is on the lam, meets Eve on a train, they get on very well... as he holds her we see her cool, calculating face, having slipped a note to his pursuers in the next compartment.

* SilenceIsGolden: Except for some small talk between Thornhill and the guy waiting for the bus, the crop duster scene doesn't have dialogue up until [[spoiler:the plane crashes into the truck]].

* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Vandamm really was genuinely fond of Eve. [[spoiler:He does not take her betrayal well. Not at all.]]

* UsefulNotes/{{Chicago}}: We do go through Chicago on the way west.

* FiveBadBand:

** Also, the ROT matchbox. [[spoiler:Thornhill shows it to Eve first of all on the train to Chicago, then he later uses it near the end of the film to scribble a message inside to warn Eve of the attempt about to be made on her life.]]

* VillainsOutShopping: Subverted. Vandamm and his men (plus Eve) attend the art auction in Chicago, [[spoiler:but only so they can get hold of the statue they intend to hide microfilm in.]]

** This is even included in the stage production: on his way to the fateful hotel meeting, Roger and his secretary steal a cab, claiming the woman is ill, from an ensemble member dressed and made up to imitate Hitchcock. (see FailingATaxi)

** This is even included in the stage production: on his way to the fateful dinner meeting, Roger and his secretary steal a cab, claiming the woman is ill, from an ensemble member dressed and made up to imitate Hitchcock. (see FailingATaxi)

** This is even included in the stage production: on his way to the fateful dinner meeting, Roger and his secretary steal a cab, claiming the woman is ill, from an ensemble member dressed and made up to imitate Hitchcock.

* BigApplesauce: The story begins in NYC and the first section takes place there: specifically fifth avenue, the UN, Grand Central Station, most of which were done in Hollywood studios, with only few exteriors.