The VistaVision widescreen process results in perhaps the definitive cinematic sequence of the Alfred Hitchcock oeuvre: Cary Grant versus a crop-duster. Hitchcock uses every inch of the yawning screen to tease and terrify us, letting us think we know what is about to happen – and how – before yanking us in an unexpected direction. Outside of this sequence, North by Northwest is serviceable Hitchcock, mostly notable for some deft comic work by Grant as Roger Thornhill, an ad man mistaken for a spy, and some startling carnality on the part of Eva Marie Saint as Thornhill’s lust interest. (Their initial conversation in a dining car consists of what can only be called single entendres.) Hitchcock psychologists will also want to take note of the prominent role given to Thornhill’s disapproving mother (Jessie Royce Landis). The mother-son sleuthing scenes early on are among the funniest in the film.
