North by Northwest (1959)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Advertising man Roger Thornhill is mistaken for a spy, triggering a deadly cross-country chase.
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4 films that influenced North by Northwest
What critics say influenced North by Northwest
The irony should not be lost on the fact that David Fincher's Mank, a dramatized feature about the writing of one of Orson Welles's greatest films, Citizen Kane (1941), is being released by the streaming giant Netflix.
If you consider that Stanley Kubrick ( Eyes Wide Shut ) did essentially the same thing with his second movie, Killer's Kiss , Lehmann's accomplishment seems extraordinary.
And in James Mason and fey, wide-eyed "enforcer" Martin Landau, the film reprises the two camp, cosmopolitan killers from Rope .
But, this is also the apotheosis of Hitchcock’s “wrong man” movies: a series of films he’d been making since the silent days, and which bore such gems as The 39 Steps and, suitably enough, The Wrong Man .
If you and your older kids are fans of Rear Window and North by Northwest but you haven't seen any of Alfred Hitchcock's earlier British films, you're in for a treat.
Several of his films have been labeled remakes of “The 39 Steps” (1935), but it's probably more accurate to say that movies such as “Saboteur” (1942) and “North by Northwest” (1959) are nifty variations on a formula that might not have been created by Hitchcock, but which was certainly perfected by him.
Humor and romance play a big part in the breezy yet tense The 39 Steps and the mistaken-identity/conspiracy plot and flirtatious nature of the lead character in this movie (Richard Hannay, played by Robert Donat) would also later be used to great effect by Hitchcock in North by Northwest with Cary Grant.
The precursor to the James Bond movies as well as Strangers on a Train, North by Northwest, et al., Hitchcock's 39 Steps is simultaneously suspenseful, insouciant, and absurd—a work of heightened theatricality and bravura, breakneck filmmaking.
The 39 Steps has all the ingredients of classic Hitch, not least the innocent-man-on-the-run plot, a staple all the way through to 1959's North by Northwest.