North by Northwest

North by Northwest

By Alfred Hitchcock

North by Northwest is a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by Ernest Lehman and staring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, and James Mason.

The film entails an innocent New Yorker advertising executive who is mistaken for a government agent (George Kaplan) by a group of foreign spies who want him dead. The spies chase who they believe is the government agent while he looks for a way to survive and prove that he is not who they think he is.

In many ways North by northwest is a successful thriller for example a thriller is characterised as fast pacing frequent action. This is common in North by Northwest, as there is a lot of action in many of the scenes. For example the crop duster scene where Cary Grant playing the character of Roger Thornhill is attacked by a crop duster plane.

Cary Grant is a resourceful hero as he manages to thwart the plans of the more powerful and better equipped villains. An example of this is in the auction scene where he uses his cunning to get out of a tricky situation.




The macguffin is the plot line which keeps the story moving but isnt what the audience is focusing on. In north by northwest the macguffin is the villians trying to keep the CIA agents from finding out their plans to smuggle some microfilm.