Revealing mistake: In the shooting scene in the Mount Rushmore cafe, a boy in the background puts his fingers in his ears, because he knows the gun is about to be shot.
North by Northwest (1959)
Plot summary
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Mason, Cary Grant, Martin Landau, Eva Marie Saint
New York advertising executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is kidnapped by a gang of spies led by Philip Vandamm (James Mason), who believe Thornhill is CIA agent George Kaplan. Thornhill escapes, but must find Kaplan in order to clear himself of a murder it is believed he committed. Following Kaplan to Chicago as a fugitive from justice, Thornhill is helped by beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint). In Chicago, she delivers a message to Kaplan that almost costs Thornhill his life when he is chased across a cornfield by a crop-dusting plane. When he survives, he slowly decides to get to the bottom of all this in order to survive this whole mess that he was dragged into.
Big Evil
Roger Thornhill: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.
Eve Kendall: What makes you think you have to conceal it?
Roger Thornhill: She might find the idea objectionable.
Eve Kendall: Then again, she might not.
Trivia: Alfred Hitchcock's cameo comes at the end of the opening credits. He can be seen missing the bus.
Question: Why is this movie called 'North by Northwest'?
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Chosen answer: The original title for the movie was "In a Northwesterly Direction", as it was originally detailing the flight of a man from New York to Alaska, according to writer Earnest Lehman. According to Alfred Hitchcock, however, he took the title from a line in Hamlet, another work of fiction that is concerned with the slippery nature of reality. It is also worth noting that North by Northwest is not a direction on the compass at all. The nearest to it would be Northwest by North.
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