Search - North By Northwest [Widescreen] on DVD

MPAA Rating: NR Content Advisory: Mild Violence Movie Release: 1959 DVD Release: 09/07/2004 Format: DVD - Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Edition: Dual Layered,Restored/Remastered Audio Tracks: English, French Subtitles: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 16 mins Studio: Warner Home Video Members Wishing: 38 Genres: Spy Film, Thriller, Chase Movie, Romantic Mystery See Also: North by Northwest, North by Northwest [Special Edition Collector's Box], North by Northwest [Special Edition], North by Northwest [Blu-ray]

While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel in New York, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to call for a messenger just as a page goes out for a "George Kaplan." From that moment, Thornhill finds that he has stepped into a nightmare -- he is quietly abducted by a pair of armed men out of the hotel's famous Oak Room and transported to a Long Island estate; there, he is interrogated by a mysterious man (James Mason) who, believing that Roger is George Kaplan, demands to know what he knows about his business and how he has come to acquire this knowledge. Roger, who knows nothing about who any of these people are, can do nothing but deny that he is Kaplan or that he knows what they're talking about. Finally, his captors force a bottle of bourbon into Roger and put him behind the wheel of a car on a dangerous downhill stretch. Through sheer luck and the intervention of a police patrol car and its driver (John Beradino), Roger survives the ride and evades his captors, and is booked for drunk driving. He's unable to persuade the court, the county detectives, or even his own mother (Jesse Royce Landis) of the truth of his story, however -- Thornhill returns with them to the mansion where he was held, only to find any incriminating evidence cleaned up and to learn that the owner of the house is a diplomat, Lester Townsend (Philip Ober), assigned to the United Nations. He backtracks to the hotel to find the room of the real George Kaplan, only to discover that no one at the hotel has ever actually seen the man. With his kidnappers once again pursuing him, Thornhill decides to confront Townsend at the United Nations, only to discover that he knows nothing of the events on Long Island, or his house being occupied -- but before he can learn more, Townsend gets a knife in his back in full view of 50 witnesses who believe that Roger did it. Now on the run from a murder charge, complete with a photograph of him holding the weapon plastered on the front page of every newspaper in the country, Thornhill tries to escape via train -- there he meets the cooly beautiful Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who twice hides him from the police, once spontaneously and a second time in a more calculated rendezvous in her compartment that gets the two of them together romantically, at least for the night. By the next day, he's off following a clue to a remote rural highway, where he is attacked by an armed crop-dusting plane, one of the most famous scenes in Hitchcock's entire film output. Thornhill barely survives, but he does manage to learn that his mysterious tormentor/interrogator is named Phillip Vandamm, and that he goes under the cover of being an art dealer and importer/exporter, and that Eve is in bed with him in every sense of the phrase -- or is she? ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide

Cary Grant - Roger O. Thornhill
Eva Marie Saint - Eve Kendall
James Mason - Phillip Vandamm
Jesse Royce Landis - Clara Thornhill
Leo G. Carroll - The Professor

The last collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and Cary Grant, North by Northwest gets yet another DVD release with this release from Warner Bros. The film is presented in a widescreen anamorphic transfer that preserves the original theatrical aspect ratio. The English soundtrack has been remixed into Dolby Digital 5.1, and a French soundtrack has been recorded in Dolby Digital Mono. Supplemental materials include a music-only audio track that allows one to savor Bernard Herrmann's score, a collection of trailers for Hitchcock films, and a making-of documentary with interviews from many of the film's participants. This is a solid release that is also available as part of the nine-disc =Alfred Hitchcock: The Signature Collection. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide