Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic thriller “North by Northwest” will careen back onto the silver screen for a special one-day-only showing at 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 5 at Bainbridge Cinemas.
Tickets are $11; visit www.farawayentertainment.com to purchase.
This classic suspense film finds New York City ad executive Roger Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) pursued by ruthless spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) after Thornhill is mistaken for a government agent. Hunted relentlessly by Vandamm’s associates, the harried Thornhill ends up on a cross-country journey, meeting the beautiful and mysterious Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) along the way.
Soon Vandamm’s henchmen close in on Thornhill, resulting in a number of iconic action sequences including the famous crop duster attack the climactic finale atop Mount Rushmore.
The film was hailed, even in its own time, as a classic and proved incredibly popular with audiences then and now.
According to Time Magazine, “During its two-week run at Radio City Music Hall, the film grossed $404,056, setting a record in that theater’s non-holiday gross.”
According to MGM records, the film reportedly earned $5,740,000 in the U.S. and Canada and $4.1 million elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $837,000.
The London edition of Time Out Mgazine, reviewing the film nearly a half-century after its release, said: “Fifty years on, you could say that Hitchcock’s sleek, wry, paranoid thriller caught the zeitgeist perfectly: Cold War shadiness, secret agents of power, urbane modernism, the ant-like bustle of city life, and a hint of dread behind the sharp suits of affluence. Cary Grant’s Roger Thornhill, the film’s sharply dressed ad exec who is sucked into a vortex of mistaken identity, certainly wouldn’t be out of place in ‘Mad Men.’ But there’s nothing dated about this perfect storm of talent, from Hitchcock and Grant to writer Ernest Lehman (‘Sweet Smell of Success’), co-stars James Mason and Eva Marie Saint, composer Bernard Herrmann and even designer Saul Bass, whose opening credits sequence still manages to send a shiver down the spine.”
