NORTH BY NORTHWEST....

North by Northwest is a late 1950^s film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. This film will be always remembered by its perfect plot and powerful images due to a masterly use of technique.

At the beginning of the film shows one of the most well-made confusion in the history of cinema. While Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) –an advertising executive- is having lunch in a prestigious restaurant, he has the bad luck to lift his arm to call for a messenger, just as the same time as a telephone call is announced for a certain George Kaplan. From that moment on, Thornill is mistaken for Kaplan –a supposed USA spy- by the bad guys.

Among the techniques used by Hitchcock, the establishing shot is a characteristic recourse in this film. For instance, shots that provides sceneries like United Nation building, the famous cornfield scene or Mount Rushmore scene. This type of shot helps the spectator to know quickly where the action takes place, since the main character changes locations frequently.  However,  it is also used the shot reverse shot, because that one is useful to show a scene where two characters are in a conversation; that is, it is a closer way to watch a conversation and maintain the pace of the scene. For instance, the train scene with Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant at the restaurant wagon (in this same train happens the famous censored scene whose Spanish version has different voices because it was added later -see below-).

Tell me, why are you so good to me?

Kendall: Shall I climb up and tell you why? I've been thinking...it's not safe for you to roam Chicago

looking for this George Kaplan you've been telling me about. You'll be picked up by the police the moment you show your face. It's such a nice face, too.

Don't you think it'd be a better idea if you stayed in my hotel room while I located him for you and brought him to you?

Thornhill: I can't let you get involved. It's too dangerous.

Kendall: I'm a big girl.

Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.

Kendall: You know, this is ridiculous.  You know that, don't you?

Thornhill: Yes.

Kendall: I mean, we've hardly met.

Thornhill: That's right.

Kendall: How do I know you aren't a murderer?

Thornhill: You don't.

Kendall: Maybe you're planning to murder me, right here, tonight.

Thornhill: Shall l?

Kendall: Please do.

Thornhill: Beats flying, doesn't it?

Kendall: We should stop.

Thornhill: Immediately.

Kendall: I ought to know more about you.

Thornhill: What more could you know?

Kendall: You're an advertising man, that's all I know.

Thornhill: That's right. What else do you know?

Kendall: You've got taste in clothes, taste in food....

Thornhill: And taste in women. I like your flavor.

Kendall: You're very clever with words.

Kendall: You can probably make them do anything for you. Sell people things they don't need, make women who don't know you

fall in love with you.

Thornhill: I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid.