‘North by Northwest’ is a 1959 thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Featuring a screenplay by Ernest Lehman, a score by Bernard Herrmann and titles by Saul Bass, it is breathlessly dramatic, playfully romantic and thoroughly stylish.

Cary Grant stars as Roger O Thornhill, an advertising executive who is smooth-tongued and somewhat superficial.

‘Roger O Thornhill. What does the O stand for?’
‘Nothing.’

While meeting Clients in the Oak Room at the Plaza Hotel, New York, Thornhill is mistaken for a Government agent and abducted. The villains, led by the charming but menacing Vandamm (James Mason), have been smuggling Cold War secrets out of the United States. They orchestrate a fatal road accident for Thornhill and, when that fails, they frame him for a murder at the United Nations Building.

Soon Thornhill is being hunted down by spies, federal agents and the police. He eludes his pursuers at Grand Central Station, and joins mysterious stranger Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) for a Gibson in the restaurant car of the Twentieth Century to Chicago.

Why is she helping him? Why is she seducing him? Can she be trusted? 

Next Thornhill is lured to a rendezvous in an isolated, sun-drenched field in Indiana. Suddenly he is attacked by a murderous crop-dusting biplane.

'That's funny. That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops.’

‘North by Northwest’ is a compelling tale of mistaken identity, of an innocent caught up in espionage and intrigue. It is littered with diversions, distractions and deceptions. It is far-fetched, knowing and mischievous. And in keeping with the theme of artifice, the film is incredibly well dressed.

Grant spends most of the movie in a grey flannel, ventless, three-button suit, tailored by Kilgour, Savile Row. Despite everything he’s going through, he never looks particularly flustered. Saint’s wardrobe was sourced entirely from Bergdorf Goodman. She exudes confidence in a black business suit; sustains her cool in a belted blue-grey dress; holds her nerve in an almost off-the shoulder black silk number, full-skirted with a red rose pattern. The clothes act as protection, as projection, as disguise.

When eventually the Government agents catch up with Thornhill, he needs some convincing if he is to assist them in foiling the villains.

'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.’

Of course, as an advertising person Thornhill should have been comfortable playing the red herring. Ours is a profession that can countenance artifice, exaggeration and the occasional rhetorical flourish, if such devices help to achieve our objective. We like to emphasise urgency and heighten suspense; to enhance benefits and excite emotions. We employ all manner of tactics in the art of selling.

'In the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only expedient exaggeration.’

The practice of persuasion often calls for creative flare, a dramatic flourish, a sense of style. As Vandamm observes to Thornhill, the theatrical arts are often underestimated.

'Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.'

‘North by Northwest’ reaches its climax in a nail-biting chase scene among the huge Presidential sculptures on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. Grant is now in a loose Brookes Brothers button-down shirt. Saint is in an elegant orange wool suit. It’s gripping stuff.

'If I could turn the page in time, 
Then I'd rearrange just a day or two.
Close my eyes,
But I couldn't find a way.
So I'll settle for one day to believe in you.
Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies.
Tell me lies.’

Fleetwood Mac, ’Little Lies’ (C McVie, E Quintela)

No. 316