North by Northwest

A closer look at the story

For advertising executive Roger Thornhill, an ordinary day at New York's Plaza Hotel is turned upside down in a single unlucky moment. As he gets ready to leave, the name "George Kaplan" is announced, and Roger happens to get to his feet at that exact instant. That simple gesture gets him taken for a spy and sets off a lethal chain of misunderstandings. Before long Roger is the target both of foreign agents bent on killing him and of police who believe he has committed a murder. To prove his innocence and stay alive, he is dragged into a relentless game of cat and mouse that stretches from one end of America to the other. The enigmatic Eve Kendall also enters his story. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Ernest Lehman, the 137-minute 1959 film stars Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason in a classic suspense adventure.