Madison Avenue advertising man Roger Thornhill finds himself thrust into the world of spies when he is mistaken for a man by the name of George Kaplan. Foreign spy Philip Vandamm and his henchman Leonard try to eliminate him but when Thornhill tries to make sense of the case, he is framed for murder. Now on the run from the police, he manages to board the 20th Century Limited bound for Chicago where he meets a beautiful blond, Eve Kendall, who helps him to evade the authorities. His world is turned upside down yet again when he learns that Eve isn't the innocent bystander he thought she was. Not all is as it seems however, leading to a dramatic rescue and escape at the top of Mt. Rushmore. Written by

Plot Synopsis:
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At the end of an ordinary work day, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) hurries from a Madison Avenue office building to a business meeting at the Oak Room bar of the Plaza Hotel. After asking his secretary to phone his mother, he realizes that she won't be able to reach her by telephone, so he will need to send a telegram instead. When a hotel pageboy passes by calling for a Mr. George Kaplan, Thornhill flags him down, to inquire about sending a telegram. Unfortunately, this also draws the attention of two henchmen, names Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein), who mistake Roger for Kaplan because from the vantage point they are standing at, he appears to be answering the page. As Roger steps into the corridor to send his wire, the henchmen abduct Roger at gunpoint and force him into a waiting car.

Wordlessly, they drive him out of Manhattan to a Long Island country estate displaying the name "Townsend" at its entrance. The car snakes up a long winding driveway to the front entrance. A maid lets them in the front door, and Roger is locked inside the library of the mansion. Left alone, he finds a newspaper on the desk addressed to "Mr. Lester Townsend, 169 Baywood, Glen Cove, N.Y."

Shortly, the library door opens and there enters an urbane English-accented gentleman (James Mason), evidently none other than Townsend himself, followed soon after by his personal secretary, Leonard (Martin Landau). The gentleman addresses his captive as "Kaplan," and by his questions, Roger can only assume that the real Kaplan must be some sort of secret agent on this man's trail. Roger tries to convince him that his name is Thornhill and has never been anything else, but his skeptic captor will not hear of it. To "prove" his point, the man proceeds to recite the elusive Kaplan's recent itinerary of hotels, cities, and ever-changing hometowns, including Kaplan's present occupancy of room 796 at the Plaza Hotel, and his future stops in the next few days in Chicago and Rapid City, South Dakota. To find out how much "Kaplan" knows about his organization and their current arrangements, he puts Leonard in charge of extracting the information while he withdraws to join Mrs. Townsend (Josephine Hutchinson) and their party guests. Leonard unseals a fifth of bourbon taken from a liquor cabinet, and with the aid of Valerian and Licht, he begins to force the whiskey down Roger's throat.

Having failed to get any information from their victim, Valerian and Licht place the severely intoxicated Thornhill behind the wheel of a Mercedes on a seaside highway under cover of darkness, planning to guide him off of a cliff to his death. Almost unaware of his surroundings, Roger comes sufficiently alert at the last moment to push Valerian out of the car and start driving for himself. The two thugs follow him down the winding highway in their own car. Roger, on the verge of passing out and plagued with double vision, manages to careen his way down the cliffside highway without hitting anything. As he slams on brakes to barely avoid running over a bicyclist, a pursuing police car plows into the rear of the Mercedes, and a third car plows into the rear of the police car. Finding themselves overmatched, the two henchmen drive away leaving Roger in police custody.

Roger tells everyone at the police station how his captors had tried to kill him, but in his drunken condition no one pays any attention to his bizarre story. One of the policemen mentions that the Mercedes Roger was driving was reported stolen. Roger phones his mother to let her know he is at the Glen Cove police station for the night. In the morning, Roger and his attorney Larrabee (Edward Platt) face the judge, with Roger's mother, Clara Thornhill (Jessie Royce Landis), looking on in weary bemusement. The judge gives Roger a chance to prove his doubtful story, and continues the case over to the next day.

A pair of county detectives accompanies Roger, his mother, and Larrabee to the house where he says last night's events took place. They are escorted into the same library while the same maid goes for Mrs. Townsend. Roger shows them the sofa which should still be stained and soaked with spilled bourbon, but it has apparently been cleaned. He opens the liquor cabinet, only to find it is full of books. When "Mrs. Townsend" comes in, she greets Roger like an old friend, and asks if he had gotten home all right. She says that he had been so drunk when he left their party the night before, that they had all been worried about him. When Captain Junket (Edward Binns) mentions the stolen car registered to a Mrs. Babson, Mrs. Townsend asks, "You didn't borrow Laura's Mercedes?" Roger suggests that they question her husband. Mrs. Townsend informs them that he is at the United Nations where he will be addressing the General Assembly that afternoon. As his protests continue to fall on deaf ears, his mother chimes in, "Roger, pay the two dollars!" The visitors get back into the car and drive away. Behind them, a gardener looks up from his work. It is Valerian, disguised.

Roger and his mother take a cab to the Plaza Hotel, where Roger tries to phone Kaplan's room. But he learns that Kaplan hasn't answered his phone in two days. Rogers cajoles his mother into getting the key to room 796 from the front desk. They go upstairs and into Kaplan's room. Both the chambermaid and the valet treat him as Kaplan, since he's the man in room 796 whom they have never actually seen. Roger finds a photo of his host from the evening before, which he slips into his pocket. The phone rings. Roger answers it and hears the familiar voice of one of his recent captors. He then calls the hotel operator and learns that the call originated inside the hotel.

Roger hurries his mother out of the room, and as they enter an elevator going down, Valerian and Licht step out of one coming up just in time to join the crowded group of passengers in the down elevator. To cut the tension on the way down, Mrs. Thornhill asks the two men if they are really going to kill her son. The thugs start laughing and gradually everyone in the car (except Roger) joins in. When the doors open, Roger insists, "Ladies first." And under cover of escorting the ladies off the car, he manages to elude his pursuers and escape into the street. He jumps into a cab and asks the driver take him to the United Nations. Seeing the thugs following him, he asks the driver to lose them if he can.

When he gets to the U.N. General Assembly Building, Roger asks for Lester Townsend, giving his own name as Kaplan. He is told to go to the public lounge where the attendant can page Mr. Townsend for him. Meanwhile, Valerian steps out of another taxi and tells Licht to wait with the cab on the other side of the building for him. Valerian then walks into the General Assembly Building. When Lester Townsend (Philip Ober) answers the page, he is not the same man Roger had seen the evening before. Roger asks him about the house in Glen Cove, which Townsend says is his, but the house is currently locked up with only the gardener and his wife living on the grounds (implying it to be Valerian and the house maid). Townsend says that he always stays in the city when the General Assembly is in session. Roger asks about Mrs. Townsend and learns that she has been dead for many years. As Roger shows him the picture of his captor, Townsend flinches and begins to collapse. Valerian has thrown a knife across the lounge and flees unnoticed, and Townsend falls dead at Roger's feet. Reflexively, Roger pulls the knife out of Townsend's back just as people begin to look at the commotion, and a photographer's light bulb goes off. It appears to everyone around him that Roger has killed the real Lester Townsend! Roger drops the knife, bolts to the exit and jumps into a taxicab.

The next morning, the action changes to inside the boardroom of a government intelligence agency in Washington D.C. where a group of planners remark about the photo of "U.N murderer" Roger Thornhill on the front page of a newspaper. They consider how to deal with the sudden appearance of a man who has been mistaken for the non-existent George Kaplan. It is revealed that these agents invented a non-existent agent named "George Kaplan" as a decoy for their real agent who has infiltrated an enemy group headed by a man named Vandamm. They've succeeded in making Vandamm believe that their phantom "Kaplan" is the real agent, by creating a trail of hotel registrations complete with prop clothing and other personal belongings moved in and out of the various hotel rooms by fellow agents. And now Vandamm has somehow mistaken Thornhill for Kaplan. The intelligence chief, a middle-aged gentleman called the Professor (Leo G. Carroll) suggests that the agency do nothing to help Thornhill. If they try to help him, they risk exposing their real agent who would probably be killed. For the time being, they will simply wait and let this real-life "Kaplan" (Thornhill) lend credibility to their invented "Kaplan."

Meanwhile back in New York, Roger calls his mother from Grand Central Station to tell her he's taking the train to Chicago. He has learned that Kaplan checked out of the Plaza and has gone on to the Ambassador East in Chicago, so Roger is following him there to find out what is going on. He tries to buy a ticket on the 20th Century Limited, but the ticket agent recognizes him and quietly calls security. Roger slips away unseen, makes his way to the platform, and boards the 20th Century Limited without a ticket, closely pursued by police. Colliding with a beautiful young woman (Eva Marie Saint) in the train corridor, he ducks into a nearby compartment as the police appear at the other end of the corridor. The woman misdirects the police off of the train as it gets underway.

As time passes, Roger manages to elude the conductors while they tally up the passenger count. Then he makes his way to the dining car, where the steward seats him with the same beautiful young woman who had helped him in the corridor earlier. She introduces herself as Eve Kendall. He gives her a false name, but she answers: "No. You're Roger Thornhill of Madison Avenue, and you're wanted for murder on every front page in America. Don't be so modest." But she assures him she won't turn him in, since it's going to be a long night and she doesn't particularly like the book she's started. He lights her cigarette from his personally monogrammed "R-O-T" matchbook. "Roger O. Thornhill. What does the 'O' stand for?" she asks. He tells her, "Nothing." When he admits he doesn't have a ticket, she invites him to share her drawing room, just as the train comes to an unscheduled stop. Two men in plain clothes get out of a police car and board the train. Roger and Eve leave the dining car to make their way to her compartment.

Presently, Eve is lying on the lower berth while Roger talks to her from his hiding place in the closed upper berth. A knock comes at the door, and the two police detectives enter and question her about the man she was talking with at dinner. She deflects their questions, saying she'd never seen him before, and that they hadn't talked about anything important. They leave to continue their search. Using a key she had stolen earlier from a porter, Eve opens the upper berth to let Roger out.

As the evening progresses, Roger and Eve become very close very quickly, falling in love in spite of not knowing much about each other. A buzz at the door announces the porter, who is ready to make Eve's bed for her. Roger hides in the washroom while the porter is there, and Eve returns the berth key to the porter, telling him that she had found it on the floor. The porter leaves. Since there's only one bed, Eve insists that Roger is going to sleep on the floor as they return to their interrupted embrace.

In another part of the train, the porter delivers a note into the hand of Leonard, who passes it to his boss. The note reads, "What do I do with him in the morning? Eve."

In the morning, Eve and Roger get off the train in Chicago with Roger dressed in a redcap's uniform and carrying her luggage. He walks ahead as the two police detectives stop and ask if she has anything to report. She doesn't, and she rejoins Roger. She is also aware of Vandamm and Leonard walking a short ways behind. She tells Roger to change back into his suit which she's hidden on one of her cases, while she calls Kaplan for him.

The police soon discover a redcap who is missing his uniform, and they begin to examine every redcap porter in the station trying to find Thornhill. Roger ducks into the men's room, quickly changes, and starts to shave with a very tiny travel razor from the train's washroom. The police walk right past him, not recognizing him through the shaving cream on his face.

Meanwhile, Eve in a phone booth is making notes, while in another booth several booths away Leonard is giving instructions into the phone. Eve and Leonard leave their booths at the same time, taking no notice of each other. When Roger joins her, she says that Kaplan wants him to take the Indianapolis bus and to get off at a stop known as Prairie Stop, where Kaplan will meet him at 3:30 p.m.. He asks how he can find her again later. Eve, for some reason, is clearly nervous. She looks toward an empty doorway and tells him, "They're coming!" He hurries away.

That afternoon, Roger steps off the bus in the midst of a vast open prairie and begins to wait. An occasional car or truck drives by, with long empty intervals between them. Looking around, Roger notices a nearby corn field, and a crop duster at work in the distance. And still he waits. A man gets out of a car on the opposite side of the road. Thinking he might be Kaplan, Roger approaches. But the man is just waiting for the next bus. The man comments on the crop duster, observing that it seems to be dusting where there aren't any crops.

After the man gets on the next bus, Roger is left alone again. The crop dusting plane approaches, swooping low over Roger's position. It comes around and approaches again, strafing the ground with machine gun fire. Roger tries to flag down a car, but it doesn't stop. The plane strafes again, and Roger runs into the corn field, hiding among the tall stalks. The plane's first pass over the field accomplishes nothing, and Roger begins to think he's eluded them. On its next pass the plane drops pesticide over the field. Gasping for breath, Roger has to abandon the cover of the corn stalks. He sees a gasoline tanker truck approaching, and he stands in its way forcing it to stop, which it does barely in time, knocking him to the ground unhurt. The tanker's quick stop presents a sudden obstacle to the low-swooping plane, and it flies headlong into the load of gasoline, bursting into flames. Roger and the drivers flee the truck moments before the second gas tank explodes. Some passersbys stop to view the accident scene, and Roger steals a pickup truck from one of them and drives away. The stolen pickup is next seen that evening parked on a Chicago street.

Roger inquires at the front desk of the Ambassador East Hotel for George Kaplan's room number, only to learn that Kaplan had checked out that morning at 7:10 a.m., leaving a forwarding address for the Hotel Sheraton-Johnson in Rapid City, South Dakota. Roger can't understand how he could have gotten the message that morning at 9:10 a.m. if Kaplan had already left. Standing in confusion for a moment, Roger spots, of all people, Eve Kendall entering the lobby. She picks up a newspaper and takes the elevator to the fourth floor. Roger tells the desk clerk that Eve Kendall is expecting him in room 4-something-or-other, he can't remember the whole number. The clerk tells him 463.

Roger rings the buzzer at room 463, and is admitted by a surprised Eve. She runs into his arms, apparently happy to see him alive, but he keeps his barriers up. Roger also notices a newspaper detailing the crop dust plane crash into the tanker truck killing both men aboard the plane. Roger plans to stick with Eve and not let her out of his sight, but Eve says that she has plans of her own. The phone rings. Eve tells the caller that she will meet them, jotting an address on a memo pad. She tears off the note and places it into her purse, where she also carries a small handgun. Roger insists on having dinner with her, but she tells him to leave and never see her again. Last night was all there was, they're not going to get involved. He keeps insisting that they have dinner first. She gives in, on the condition that he have the hotel valet clean up his dusty suit. Roger goes into the bathroom to shower, and he passes his trousers out to her. The valet takes his suit away. Then Eve slips away, not knowing that Roger was faking the shower and was watching her. He uses a pencil to shade over the impressions on the top blank sheet of the memo pad, revealing the address she had jotted down as "1212 N. Michigan."

A few hours later, wearing his own suit again, Roger steps out of a taxi at 1212 N. Michigan to find an art auction underway in the gallery at that address. In the crowd, Eve Kendall sits under the attentive and watchful eye of Roger's recent captor, the false "Lester Townsend," with Leonard standing close by. Townsend/Vandamm puts his hand on Eve's shoulder, apparently as a clear sign of affection, and he smiles at her while she smiles back. Consumed by anger and jealousy, Roger approaches the trio, and his accusatory tone causes the suspicious "Townsend" to draw away from Eve. She becomes alarmed. Just then an unusual primitive figurine goes up for sale. "Townsend" bids on the sculpted figure, and when he wins the sale, Roger learns that his name is Vandamm. By now, Vandamm has had enough of "Kaplan," and he tells Leonard to finish him off who walks off. This whole scene is observed by the Professor who is lurking in the crowd. Roger starts to leave, but Valerian blocks his way at the main entrance, while Leonard blocks the front stage.

(Note: It is speculated here that Vandamm's other henchman, Licht, was shooter in the crop duster plane which crashed along with the anonymous pilot aboard. Thus, Licht, from this point, is never seen again in the movie.)

As Vandamm and Eve make their exit, Roger is trapped and must wait behind in the crowd. To manufacture an escape, Roger begins to disrupt the auction, bidding wildly and making rude remarks about the art work. When the police finally arrive, Roger starts a fight with a gallery employee to provoke an arrest. Vandamm's men can do nothing as the police lead him away. As they leave, the Professor makes a quick phone call. When Roger identifies himself as the United Nations killer on their way downtown, the policemen call the station for instructions. They are told to take him to the airport instead of police headquarters.

At the Northwest Airlines counter, the Professor arrives and takes Thornhill off the policemen's hands, and leads him out onto the tarmac to catch a plane to Rapid City, SD, near Mt. Rushmore. The Professor explains that Vandamm has a house near Mt. Rushmore, and they think that will be his jumping off point to leave the country the following night. He explains that George Kaplan does not exist, but that he and his associates in Washington need for Roger to continue to play the role of Kaplan for the next 24 hours, to assure Vandamm that everything is all right. They want Vandamm to continue on his journey so that they can learn more about his spy organization overseas and his dealings with smuggling government secrets in and out of the USA. Roger learns that Eve is the government's undercover agent, and that the scene Roger made at the art auction has put her life in jeopardy. Roger's harsh words, and Eve's candid reactions, had made it obvious to Vandamm that his mistress is emotionally involved with a man he believes to be a government agent. For Eve's sake, Roger agrees to co-operate with the Professor to help set things right again.

A meeting is set up between "Kaplan" and Vandamm in the cafeteria of the Mt. Rushmore Visitors Center. While the Professor stands hidden in the background, Vandamm arrives with Eve and Leonard. In exchange for not revealing Vandamm's plans to leave the country that night, Roger asks Vandamm to give Eve over to him so that she can get what's coming to her. Vandamm reluctantly agrees. When Roger takes hold of Eve, she draws the handgun from her purse, shoots Roger, and runs away. The Professor emerges from the crowd, examines Roger and shakes his head regretfully. Leonard prompts Vandamm to leave before the authorities arrive. Park employees carry Roger out on a stretcher, and the Professor has him loaded into a Park Service vehicle. They drive away.

The Park Service vehicle stops in a secluded wood where a very healthy Roger steps out to find Eve waiting for him. She had asked for this meeting so that they can clear the air. Eve tells him that she had met Phillip Vandamm some time ago at a party and fallen in love with him. Then the Professor had contacted her and told her Vandamm's sordid secrets, asking her to use her unique relationship with Vandamm to help the government, the first time anyone had ever asked Eve to do anything important. Roger is glad that it will all be over when Vandamm takes off that night, and he and Eve can go on with their lives. But she and the Professor tell him that she will be going away with Vandamm, because they still need her to find out more information about him. Roger doesn't want to let her go, and he tries to hold her back forcibly. But the Professor's driver knocks him down, and Eve drives away to return to Vandamm's house.

That evening, Roger finds himself locked in a hospital room wearing next to nothing. The Professor brings in a change of clothes for him to use for the next few days on his stay in the hospital. Roger asks the Professor if he could have some bourbon to help ease his stay, and agreeably the Professor leaves to fetch the bourbon. Roger quickly finishes dressing, climbs out the window and along a ledge, making his escape through the neighboring hospital room.

He makes his way to Vandamm's house, where he sees lights flashing at a nearby landing strip as if someone is signaling an incoming plane. From outside the living room window, he overhears Vandamm reassuring Eve that everything is all right, and that the plane is about ten minutes away. Leonard asks to have a parting talk with Vandamm in private. Eve goes upstairs to get her things. Leonard notes that even though Eve's actions that afternoon had dispelled Vandamm's doubts, he still doesn't trust her enough to tell her that the figurine they bought at the auction in Chicago holds a bellyful of microfilm. Leonard's suspicions had been aroused by the scene at the Visitors Center. To prove his point, Leonard aims Eve's gun at Vandamm and fires. But Vandamm finds himself unhurt, just as Kaplan must have been unhurt, because the gun is loaded with blanks. Leonard had searched Eve's luggage and found it and immediately knew it was a fake shooting. Not appreciating this cruel revelation from Leonard, Vandamm punches him in the face. But Vandamm quickly regains his composure and knows for certain now that Eve has betrayed him, and that she is working with Kaplan. He tells Leonard that the solution to this is simple: he will drop her from the plane over the ocean.

Roger has to warn Eve. He climbs up to her balcony just as she leaves her room and returns downstairs. He jots a note inside the cover of his monogrammed matchbook saying, "They're onto you. I'm in your room." From the upper landing, he tosses the matchbook down to her. It lands on the floor. She doesn't see it. Leonard comes over to speak to her, and he picks up the matchbook, tossing it onto the coffee table as he walks away, not realizing its origins. Then Eve recognizes it and reads the message. She makes an excuse and comes upstairs again.

Roger warns her that Leonard found the gun with the blanks, that they plan to do away with her, and that the figure from the auction is filled with microfilm. Roger begs her not to get on that plane, but dutifully she goes downstairs again. The entourage leaves for the plane, and only the housekeeper, Anna (Nora Marlowe), remains downstairs. Roger tries to slip out through the house, but the maid Anna stops him at gunpoint. She tells him that after the plane leaves with Vandamm, Valerian (who is revealed to be Anna's husband), as well as Leonard will return.

At the landing strip, Eve is wavering about whether to get on the plane or not. As Vandamm gives his goodbyes to Leonard and Valerian, he also tells them to say goodbye to his sister back in New York (the same woman who impersonated Mrs. Townsend for the authorities). Suddenly, shots ring out at the house, and as everyone turns to see Roger fleeing the house, Eve grabs the figure out of Vandamm's arms and runs away into the darkness toward Roger. He has driven a car from the house toward the plane, and Eve jumps into the car. They speed away. Valerian and Leonard give chase on foot. Roger explains it took him five minutes to realize the housekeeper had been covering him with that same gun filled with blanks.

They stop at the front gate, which is now closed and locked. Abandoning the car, they run into the dark woods. Before long they find themselves at the top of the Mt. Rushmore monument, with Leonard and Valerian in hot pursuit. Seeing no other way out, they start climbing down the stone faces. Leonard and Valerian split up and start climbing down after them.

Pausing for breath, Roger suggests that if they get out of this alive, that they go back on the train together. Eve asks if that was a proposition. Roger tells her it was a proposal. When Eve asks what had happened to Roger's first two marriages, he tells her his wives had left him because he led too dull a life. The two thugs keep coming at them from two sides, and they all continue climbing down.

As Roger and Eve come around an outcropping, they are surprised by Valerian waiting with a drawn knife. He pounces on Roger, and the two of them tussle until Roger manages to kick him away. Valerian plunges to his death.

In the meantime, Leonard has caught up with Eve and is trying to wrest the figurine out of her hands. He gets the statuette away, and pushes her over a ledge. She falls a few feet and manages to grab onto another ledge with her fingertips. Roger comes to help her. He reaches her and takes hold of her wrist, but he can't pull her up. Leonard comes to the ledge just above him. Roger pleads with Leonard to help them. Instead of helping, Leonard steps on Roger's fingers. Just then a shot rings out. Leonard drops the figure which shatters, revealing the hidden microfilm. He falls into the depths, already dead.

On the summit, the Professor and the captive Vandamm stand with a group of park rangers. One of the rangers puts away his gun.

Now the only way for Roger to save Eve is to pull her up on his own. As he finally succeeds in lifting her up, the scene changes to a Pullman compartment, and Roger is lifting his bride into the upper berth. The honeymooners embrace as the train enters a tunnel.

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Ian Harrison from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
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For Christmas this year, I received my first to-own DVD: Hitchcock's classic, NORTH BY NORTHWEST. After over 40 years, this rip-racing adventure-thriller still packs a punch and looks great on widescreen. This movie came along during a renaissance period for the Old Master, between masterpieces like VERTIGO and PSYCHO, but this excursion into the world of suspense is so different from anything else Hitchcock had created up to that point. Never did he challenge our endurance to keep still in our seats for such a long period of time, and yet the film's 135 minutes go by so fast it could only be explained by movie magic itself.

Cary Grant is one of those actors that a filmgoer either falls in love with or deeply envies. His debonair manner is displayed to the full in this film, even though the peril that his character goes through would cause any normal dude to break into a maddening sweat. The dialogue Roger Thornhill delivers alongside Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) in this film is sometimes too hilarious to be true, but wouldn't any woman fall for it? (I'm merely guessing here) Ernest Lehman's screenplay is so lighthearted and yet very ominous. With all the traps and pitfalls Grant goes through in this film, you would have to find comedy in it. Grant does and to great appeal. I absolutely love the sequence at the auction when Roger tries to get himself arrested by yelling out flaky bids and accusing the auctioneer of selling junk worth no more than $8. I also admire the scenes with Saint on the train to Chicago; I was tempted to jot down some of his pick-up lines, but then I realized it's just a movie (or is it?)

Hitchcock was famous throughout his career of setting up death-defying sequences with major landmarks as backdrops. Here, Mount Rushmore will never be looked at the same again afterwards. We may never enter the United Nations again without peering behind our backs for a notorious knife-thrower. And, I dare say, I will never walk alongside a highway where a cropduster could swoop at any minute. I love the line during the Rushmore incident when Grant says his two ex-wives left him because he lived too dull a life. Go figure!

It has been said that Hitchcock's many films each contain a personal side of the director inside them. The archetypes of the Master of Suspense are here amid the chasing and running across the U.S. The mysterious blonde, played to a tee by Eva Marie Saint, is a common fixture of many Hitchcock jaunts. Saint joins Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren in this feature. The protagonist is again awkward when faced with the opposite sex, but unusually casual when wrapped up in danger. The hero has an attachment to his mother, continually under his nurturing wing. And of course, the macguffin has fun with us again (government secrets my foot!)

Whenever I see action-packed epics today like "The Fugitive" or the James Bond series, they all seem to quiver in comparison to this film. It amazes me that Hitchcock is able to hold the audience in the palm of his hand throughout the whole length of the journey. We become Grant as he runs away from the police and the secret agents who have chosen him as their dupe. But throughout the squabble, we sense that Grant is getting off on the whole jaunt, just as we want the chase to continue, not looking at our watches for a minute. However, it's fascinating to note that Roger Thornhill is not a born adventurer, nor is he an archeologist with a flair for escaping impossible situations. We are experiencing the Cary Grant in all of us, running away from an enemy we do not know they are or what they want. Is this symbolism of some kind? I say who cares; just watch the film and have fun!

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nycritic
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VERTIGO did nothing to advance Hitchcock's career in 1957 when he released it, and it's actually not a shame: the following year he decided to go completely against the slow-moving erotic thriller genre and do something shamelessly commercial, escapist and single-handedly create the spy movie. Ian Fleming, author of the James Bond novels, states he based his character on the physical characteristics and the suave personality of Cary Grant, as an added note. This could well amount to be the first James Bond film -- a dangerous villain complete with a sidekick, an alluring woman with a dubious nature and an enigmatic "boss," a dashing hero, lush locales setting the scene for powerful chases and escalating danger.

NORTH BY NORTHWEST has one crucial difference to any James Bond film, though: Alfred Hitchcock. While the Bond films have been seen as quintessential action fluff (although fluff of the better kind until the franchise ran out of gas in the 80s), Hitchcock, always the master of subtext as well as suspense, creates memorable scenes that balance sexual tension, sexual innuendo, comedy, and mounting suspense seamlessly. There is never the feeling of being bored as there is too much going on, especially with the sizzling chemistry of Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant, by now a Hitchcock veteran. When they're on screen, dialog crackles and so much more is said with so little gesture -- she closes the lid on her Ice Goddess role, but gives it a nice, cheeky, knowing wink. He of course evolves from the sort of man who while looking and being slightly clumsy and under his mother's thumb -- once it becomes clear he's been marked and is a target for a sinister plot that only later becomes clear -- becomes more assertive in taking matters into his own hands. A quintessential Hitchcock Everyman, Grant has his stamp all over his role. No one can imagine anyone else running away from that crop duster in one of the movies many standout sequences, or saying the reassuring last words to Eva Marie Saint as they cuddle together in the train. When one thinks of NORTH BY NORTHWEST, one thinks Cary Grant.

Easily one of Hitchcock's best films, made while he was at the peak of his career in the bracket formed with THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH and MARNIE. Great supporting performances are all over the map, from Jesse Royce Landis as Grant's mother, James Mason as Phillip Vandamm, Martin Landau as Vandamm's protegee who might be a little more than that, and Leo G Carroll as The Professor. Doreen Lang appears early in the movie as Grant's secretary; she would of course be remembered as the woman who shrieks at Tippi Hedren in THE BIRDS and gets slapped by her as the camera holds itself tight on her face.

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Ben Parker (ben.cheshire@optusnet.com.au) from Australia
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Its Hitch's most briskly entertaining movie, and one of his most comic, adventure-caper type movies, largely thanks to the persona of Cary Grant. But its also one of his most suspenseful - in the fact that Grant is being recognised as someone else, and that he may be put in jail for someone else's crime.

I've finally come to realise just how great North by Northwest is. The reason you should love Hitchcock is he put entertainment upfront. Hitchcock was not interested in whether this or that would happen in real life: he was interested in what would make the most entertaining scene for the movie. North by Northwest is a peak in this regard. The dialogue and situations intentionally throw reality to the wind - the double-entendre dialogue in the love scenes is not supposed to be the way people talk!

If you said to Hitchcock "as if he'd keep driving" or "as if she'd do that" - he would just laugh at you and say you've missed the point. This is 100% movieland, and once you get used to the fact, and that this is not a fault in the film, but done intentionally, you'll love it. Its expressionistic - everything happens in movie language: the people laughing at Grant in the elevator, the way he keeps driving drunk near the beginning, the way he grabs the knife and everyone stares at him after someone's been stabbed.

It flirts with the idea of identity. I thought it was interesting how Grant first is dismissing, then incredulous that people should be calling him by another name; then, as the tries to find out who this guy is, he enters the hotel room of this new identity, then he puts the suit on, and finally he identifies himself as George Kaplan.

A succession of fantastic, memorable scenes, a great leading man in Grant, and one of Hermann's essential Hitch scores make for a movie i can put on at any time.

10/10

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Jason Jon Sanicki (JSanicki@aol.com) from Chicago, Illinois
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I saw this film for the first time when I was a freshman in college as part of an english class I took entitled "writing and the movies". Little did I realize that I would be seeing a film that would stay with me to this day and in essence become one of my all time favorites. Then, a few years ago, I caught it on the big screen at the Fine Arts theater in downtown Chicago. I remember that it was a rainy, cold October day. Perfect weather for a Hitchcock film I thought to myself.

For me, half of the fun of North by Northwest is its incredible story. This film has something for everyone within it: a little comedy, a little romance, great snappy dialogue and more action than any Bruce Willis Die Hard film combined. Hitchcock was a master at this and in North by Northwest he lets his genius shine through totally. It seems to me that whenever I watch it, everyone who made this film from Cary Grant on down had nothing but sheer fun making it. Perhaps my two favorite scenes are the infamous "crop-duster" sequence and the last twenty minutes or so at Mount Rushmore.

I must give special mention to Ernest Lehman who yet again managed to write a screenplay that totally knocks your socks off. How he came up with the idea, I've not a clue, but what an idea it is. The screenplay itself was nominated for an Academy Award that year, but lost to Pillow Talk. North by Northwest was also nominated for Best Set Decoration and Best Film Editing, but lost to Ben-Hur in both categories.

All in all, what a film. If you haven't seein it, do so ASAP. North by Northwest just reinforces my belief that Alfred Hitchcock was one of the greatest directors of all time. Period.

My rating: 4 stars

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DrLenera
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North By Northwest is not an artistic masterpiece like Rear Window and Vertigo, but it is probably the most purely entertaining picture Hitchcock ever made. It's essentially a rehash of many of his earlier films, with a plot partially derived from The Thirty Nine Steps and the very similar Saboteur, while there are borrowings from Foreign Correspondent and Notorious, among others. However, it is all done with such style and confidence that it doesn't matter if it's essentially just a greatest hits package.

Very few other films of this kind attain the near perfect tone of this one, precariously balanced between seriousness and silliness. Sometimes this film manages the very difficult trick of being both suspenseful and comical at the same time, as in the auction house scene, or the wonderful scene in the lift when the hero's mother turns to two heavies in a lift looking menacingly at the hero and says "you gentlemen are not REALLY trying to kill my son, are you?".

Of course the famous crop dusting plane scene and the Mount Rushmore chase are terrific. The former is really more notable for the amount of time taken to build up to the action than the action itself, while the technical work on the latter still looks pretty good. In a totally different vein is the astonishingly frank seduction sequence on the train. Hitchcock takes his time here as with many of the other scenes, but the film is so crammed with memorable passages that one hardly notices it's 136 mins long.

Ernest Lehman's script is full of wonderful lines, many of them delivered so well by chief villain James Mason that at times we almost want to root for him. "Has any one ever told you tend to overplay your various roles Mr Kaplan....it seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actor's Studio". Cary Grant is so smooth one almost forgets he's over 50, and of course there's also Bernard Herrmann's vibrant score.

Endlessly enjoyable even with repeated viewings. How many of today's thrillers will be such fun in 25 years time?

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Bill Slocum (bill.slocum@gmail.com) from Greenwich, CT United States
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The one famous gaffe people point out in this film is when a small boy can be seen plugging his ears just before Eva Marie Saint brings her cafe conversation with Cary Grant to a sudden end. Another gaffe, just as egregious and apparent but not nearly as commented on, is when Cary and Eva, clutching an incriminating statute, are rock-climbing around a quartet of famous presidential heads until a bad guy suddenly appears and leaps upon him. Whereupon the surprised, backward-falling Cary has the presence of mind to hand the statute to Eva, who takes his from him whilst in mid-scream. Do me a favor and read that last sentence again. What director today would allow such a scene past the editing room?

But it just doesn't matter: IMDB voters at this writing have placed the 44-year-old `North By Northwest' ahead of all but 18 movies ever made, including 14 which have nothing to do with Frodo Baggins or Darth Vader. That's pretty damn impressive. What the hell were they thinking? The only Hitchcock movie they rate higher is "Rear Window;" I can think of at least seven or eight Hitchcocks I'd rank over "North By Northwest." [None of them are "Rear Window."]

The truth is this film is so popular because it is so good. Not great, but very, very good, in a way that anticipates a lot of the direction of mass entertainment to come and thus speaks to people in a way `Vertigo' or `Strangers On A Train' do not. People talk about how forward thinking "Psycho" is, and it is, but more directors took note of the just-as-clever-but-more-mainstream approach of "North By Northwest." The last four decade have been chock full of flicks serving up suspense, sex, changing locales, and plot twists that play with viewers' expectations, all the while keeping the laughs coming. It's not like "North By Northwest" invented this formula, but it perfected and distilled it into an essence that is imitated, with varying success, to this day.

Cary Grant plays slick adman Roger Thornhill, who gets mistaken for a fugitive named Kaplan and finds himself on the run from a slew of bad guys, led by James Mason at his smug and oily peak as Vandamme. Martin Landau makes his first memorable appearance as Mason's nastiest henchman Leonard (1959 was good to him, as "Plan Nine From Outer Space" premiered that year as well), suspicious, ruthless, and probably gay. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it was 1959 and that was a little daring.

Daring also is Eva Marie Saint's Eve Kendall, a woman who uses sex, as Thornhill puts it, "the way some people use a flyswatter." Her repartee with Thornhill shows just how erotic two people just talking to each other can be. It also provides further evidence Hitchcock's writers didn't go out on many dates. (Kendall: "I'm a big girl." Thornhill: "Yeah, and in all the right places." And she KISSES him for it!)

The film does chug slowly at the outset, building suspense but also bugging you a bit as the plot gears grind while Thornhill is being pushed through his early paces, right until his moment at the UN. About the time we find ourselves with Thornhill in the cornfield, the picture starts to pick up a serious head of steam, and never loses it all the way to the final, famous tunnel shot. Actually, I like the penultimate scene between Grant and Saint, an elegant and witty way of resolving that most tried-and-true device, the cliffhanger.

As with most of Hitchcock's ‘50s fare, elegance is behind much of what makes this movie so great. `North By Northwest' manifests an elegance in dress, decor, language, music, and lighting that represents the best of its era while giving the picture a timeless character all the same. Hitchcock's camera movements are very subtle yet brilliant, as during Mason's entrance and Grant's hide-and-seek game around the train. Everyone has perfect hair, lounges about in gowns and jackets, and you never think it should be otherwise.

Grant isn't my favorite actor, but he's smooth enough for the central role when he's not doing that bad Foster Brooks impression behind the wheel of the car. [I docked the movie one point just for that.] His best scene may be at the auction, though he projects real fear in the cornfield. Saint is simply splendid, nailing every line as she walks a tightrope and plays her character's motives close to her decolletage. Hitchcock seemed to lose his ability to direct female actors, and not merely bask in them, with the advent of color, but Saint is one blonde bombshell that gives us a sense of brains and personality behind her mystery.

There's logic gaps in this movie, and bad process shots, but it's an amazing ride all the same, more amazing because it's done with smoke and mirrors and without apologies. You ask the questions and figure out the loopholes only after you walk away, because the movie doesn't let you up much while you are watching it. Hitchcock made other, more challenging movies that attested to his rare vision as an artist, but this is maybe his purest exercise in the craft of good filmmaking. That's why `North By Northwest' has remained so high in people's estimations. Whatever the errors, it's hard not feeling good about that.

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DarthBill from United States
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I can't quite understand how anyone can dislike Alfred Hitchcock's films. Personally, he's one of the few old school talents I find interesting and watchable, even if his work is dated and set in its era (the era when most sets were hopelessly phony). I guess you have to appreciate his themes - dysfunctional relationships between a man and his mother, flawed by essentially innocent men caught up in a web of intrigue, beautiful blonds, comments of authority figures, black humor, etc - to really appreciate Hitchcock.

Interestingly, James Stewart was Hitchcock's original choice for the role of Roger Thornhill, the hapless ad man who is mistaken for a spy who doesn't even exist to begin with and is chased half way across the country by villains and authorities for a murder he didn't commit. For one reason or another, Stewart was unavailable and the part went to Cary Grant instead. Grant seems better suited to the character and the situation than Stewart would have been, but I can easily picture Stewart being chased in the cornfield by the crop duster.

Like all Hitchcock films, there are hundreds of things that aren't realistic though set in the real world and lots of highly improbable stuff going on everywhere, but if you give it a chance you'll enjoy it and won't care. Don't miss Eva Marie Saint having to dub over a then lewd line about love, a full stomach and sex. The use of a crop duster may not be the most practical way to kill a man, but it's a great visual representation of the great Hitchcockian examination of "nowhere to run, nowhere to hide". The music and clinging to Mount Rushmore is also memorable. Did I mention the innuendo?

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Charlie Gabor (hollywood@thefilmstudio.com)
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Possibly the greatest ever thriller, NbNW combines terrific acting, dialogue, cinematography, music and storyline. But the real standout is the editing. If there was ever a film that merited the cliche "a nonstop thrill ride", it's this one. The pace never slackens. I particularly like how it cuts straight from the Mt Rushmore face to the train bunkbed. I hate the anticlimactic, overlong, hokey endings of most thrillers. The final scene (scenelet) is very short, romantic denouement, a la James Bond. How refreshing.

Oh, the champagne dialogue in this movie is simply premier cru, darlings! Eve: "You don't believe in marriage." - Thornhill [indignant]: "But I've been married twice." - Eve: "See what I mean?" Or take this repartee... Vandamm: "Seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI, and a little more from the Actors' Studio." - Thornhill: "Apparently, the only performance that'll satisfy you is when I play dead." - Vandamm: "Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you."

The dialogue is also very risque for a 1950s film in places. In the dining car, for example, Thornhill: "The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her." This thinly-veiled propositioning of Eve/Eva for sex, which sounds banal these days, would have been outrageously shocking to its original 50s audience. Likewise, "I'm a big girl." - "Yeah, and in all the right places, too." A cliche now, but imagine its impact then. "I've heard nothing but innuendoes," says Vandamm at one stage. He's right; there are plenty in this movie's verbal and visual imagery.

This dialogue, and the general production design, conspire to create product that, unlike other Hitchcock thrillers like Rear Window and Psycho, doesn't appear dated now. The design is ultramodernist, which is reflected in the architecture of the locations like the NYC UN HQ and the Rushmore lodge.

A convoluted plot is usually the result of bad scripting or an attempt to mask a movie's deficiencies in other areas. As usual, Hitchcock keeps the plot dead simple and doesn't complicate matters by trying to explain. It's just some kind of meaningless Cold War spy thing. This perfectly suffices, for it's quite incidental to the thrilling chase that forms the core of the film. What seem like hokey, incredible contrivances, such as Eve's coming on so strong to Thornhill in the dining car (when we think her unaware that he's not a real murderer) are soon enough fascinatingly demystified. (She's in cahoots with Vandamm, or, as we later find, an undercover agent trying to expose him!)

Fantastic performances from Cary Grant, James Mason, Eva-Marie Saint and a much-underused Martin Landau. If there's one criticism, it's that Cary Grant is preternaturally unflappable as the urban sophisticate plunged into a living nightmare. He always retains his self-assured, even arrogant, panache and never panics. In fact, with that ever-present twinkle in his eye, he seems to be getting perverse enjoyment from his own misfortunes. However, his modulated performance remains just the right side of comicality.

Eva-Marie Saint is camera-loved as the lethal seductress. She seems the perfect Bond girl. Had her star risen a few years later, I'm sure she'd have been captivating Connery. In fact, this movie shows that Hitchcock could have directed James Bond. It's no secret Bond's film incarnation was modelled to some extent on Cary Grant's supersuave persona in this film.

A young-looking Martin Landau is effective as the menacing sidekick, although it's only in the final scene in the Rushmore lodge that he has any quality screen time or lines. James Mason underplays the role of the polished, oleaginous villain perfectly. His very British voice and demeanour conveys menace by suggestion, not overt declaration. He too, like Saint, would have been ideal in a Bond film. He doesn't sound ridiculous mouthing lines like, "A bit naughty, using real bullets!" [my paraphrase]

[Continuity: In the scene in Eve's hotel room, Thornhill calls for the valet to sponge and press his suit. He's told it'll take 20 minutes and a guy comes to collect the suit a minute later. He pretends to take a shower, whilst Eve absconds. Thornhill leaves immediately, and he doesn't return to the hotel. However, in the next scene, we see him wearing the same suit, perfectly sponged and pressed. There's no way he could have returned to the hotel to collect the suit.]

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bob the moo from United Kingdom
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Roger Thornhill is an advertising man. However when he is kidnapped it is clear that he has been mistaken for someone else. When he tries to find out what's going he is framed for murder and sets out on a cross country run to survive. Along the way he meets danger, adventure and beauty in the shape of the mysterious Eve Kendall. However when he finds the truth he is drawn towards a final showdown with the dangerous Vandamm.

Rightly regarded as a classic and can more than compete with today's thrillers that too often rely on special effects to make up for the lack of genuine suspense. Here the plot requires a great deal of faith, but it is brought off with such style and energy that it is totally absorbing. The action is great and the several main scenes have become part of popular culture and are regularly spoofed on TV etc. The romance works as well and Thornhill and Kendall exchange plenty of good scenes.

The dialogue is great and the direction is faultless from Hitchcock. Many thrillers run over 2 hours - but only the good ones can stand up to repeated viewings. Northwest can take back to back viewings it is so good. The plot may have been put together as shooting went (as was the case with at least

one key scene) but it all stands together well. The acting is also perfect, Grant's rebirth as a thriller man is brilliant and is one of Hitchcock's best everyman characters. Marie-Saint is yet another dangerous blonde but is very good. James `The Voice' Mason is excellent, while Landau adds great homosexual subtext to his character. The ever present Leo G Carroll IS Mr Waverly but is still enjoyable and even support roles like Landis as Thornhill's mother is perfection!

Over 40 years on this film has barely dated. Hearing the music is enough to make me want to see it again, while the direction, set pieces, dialogue and performances are all pitch perfect. A wonderful thriller for young and old - no sex, no swearing, all thrills.

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dweck from Philadelphia, PA, USA
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"North by Northwest" is my favorite of all Hitchcock films (a close shave with "Rear Window"), and it permanently occupies a slot in my Personal Top Ten Films of All Time.

Grant is terrific--funny, sexy, angry, confused, exhausted, redeemed. It is a full-bodied performance. And speaking of bodies--Eva Marie Saint is *definitely* an asset here, not just for her looks (there's that cool, blond Hitch femme fatale again) but for showing off her acting chops as well.

James Mason is a consumate actor, and Hitch gives him a vehicle to enter one of his finest performances. Martin Landau, too, is appropriately chilling.

Favorite scenes? The crop-dusting sequence is certainly a classic. But I love the scenes with Roger and his mother, dickering over his "drunkenness." And the auction is Hitch in his element: the scene plays tense and terse but also funny.

I can quibble with this film: The blue-screening looks a bit cheesy nowadays. And the movie opens with a huge plot hole (when the page is searching for George Kaplan and Thornhill grabs his ear for a quick question, Mason et.al. believe Thornhill to be their man, setting off the entire plot. However, shouldn't the page have continued searching the room, calling for Mr. Kaplan? And shouldn't the villains have heard him continue to page, knowing that Thornhill wasn't who they assumed he was? Ahh, but that would blow the whole movie!).

This film also contains the best "naughty joke" Hitchcock ever devised. The final sequence is Eva Marie Saint and Grant pulling each other into bed. The jump cut is to a train entering a tunnel. You figure it out.

spy|government agent|fugitive|on the run|unlikely hero|macguffin|director cameo|mistaken identity|mount rushmore|advertising|advertising executive|homosexual villain|critically acclaimed|falling from height|held at gunpoint|assassin|newspaper headline|undercover agent|female spy|1950s|sex on a train|manhattan new york city|grand central station manhattan new york city|murdered before giving protagonist information|biplane|blockbuster|train|washington d.c.|faked death|mother son relationship|railway station|united nations|airplane accident|crop duster|microfilm|chicago illinois|famous score|escape|murder|rescue|police|framed for murder|cornfield|foreplay|new york city new york|new york state|pajamas|caught from falling|reflection in a tv screen|earrings|giving a toast|looking out a window|throwing a pebble at a window|overhearing a conversation|looking into a window|climbing through a window|locked door|playing with someone's ear|photograph|olive oil|26 year old|apology|sunglasses|newspaper|u.s. intelligence agency|stabbed in the back|stabbing|kiss|being followed|following someone|elevator|valet|pursuit|waving goodbye|liar|lie|detective|sex|telephone call|telephone|reference to the winter garden theatre manhattan new york city|police station|police car|subjective camera|laughter|reference to the girl scouts|convertible|pretending to be dead|stretcher|reading a newspaper|video camera hidden in a ballpoint pen|reference to theodore roosevelt|reference to trans world airlines|red herring|suspicion|eyeglasses|reference to the cia|reference to northwest airlines|photograph in newspaper|reference to the actors studio|reference to the fbi|survival|art auction|whistling|scotch whiskey|hotel lobby|rapid city south dakota|hotel desk clerk|pickup truck|tanker truck explosion|tanker truck|waiting for a bus|greyhound bus|looking at one's self in a mirror|mirror|reference to marshall field's department store chicago|train porter|homosexual subtext|falling to one's death|airplane explosion|flashlight|reference to the gestapo|jealousy|air strip|climbing out a window|man wrapped in a towel|book of matches|climbing a wall|shooting blanks|gibson the drink|caught holding a murder weapon|united nations building|passenger train|drunken man|bourbon whiskey|non existant person|closing drapes|abduction|camera|film camera|large format camera|cliffhanger|stealing a car|police officer|brawl|fight|fistfight|knocked out|eavesdropping|bus|woods|caper|telescope|mountain|library|hostage|pay phone|handcuffs|state trooper|shot to death|shot in the back|shot in the chest|rifle|police chase|car chase|judge|phone booth|espionage|wisecrack humor|secretary|knife throwing|fear|paranoia|impalement|knife|traitor|assassination attempt|manor house|professor|double cross|betrayal|deception|undercover|female agent|femme fatale|taxi driver|foot chase|chase|damsel in distress|three word title|crime wave|identity crisis|evil man|reckless driving|airplane|policeman|death|mislaid trust|title based on shakespeare|impression of writing left on next sheet of paper|framed for drunk driving|stranger on a train|divorce|breaking and entering|aerial spraying|punched in the face|hit in the stomach|pouring alcohol down someone's throat|forced to drink and drive|lighting someone's cigarette|lighting a cigarette|cigarette smoking|running from danger|contemporary setting|reference to teddy roosevelt|cardinal direction in title|shot with a blank|false accusation|drunkenness|stepping on someone's hand|punch into the camera|train tunnel|running|black comedy|overhead camera shot|pistol|illinois|gun|suspense|imagery|ledge|walking on a ledge|sky photography|architecture|railway|kidnapping|courtroom|seduction|cafeteria|car accident|stealth|cold war|country estate|secret identity|surprise attack|hospital|dining car|attempted murder|shower|fire|secret government organisation|hotel|explosion|auction|indiana|matchbook|semi trailer|fuel|statue|crash|airport|sleeping car|restaurant|taxi|south dakota|suspected murder|falling over a cliff|assassination|disguise|secret agent|drunk driving|waiting|secret history|auto theft|marriage proposal|sports car|arrest|bus stop|premarital sex|white house|husband wife relationship|hanging up without saying goodbye|marketing executive|oedipus complex|cult director|shaving|goof in title|

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Certifications:
Argentina:13 / Australia:PG / Australia:G (1959-1998) / Brazil:14 / Canada:18A (Blu-Ray rating) / Canada:PG (Ontario) / Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) (2000) / Finland:K-16 / France:Tous publics / Germany:12 (DVD rating) / Iceland:L / Ireland:PG / Japan:G (2009) / Netherlands:12 (2008 re-release) / Netherlands:AL (DVD rating) / Netherlands:12 (re-rating) / Norway:16 / Peru:14 / Portugal:M/12 / Singapore:PG13 / South Korea:12 / Spain:13 / Sweden:15 / UK:A (original rating) / UK:PG (tv rating) / UK:PG (re-release) (re-rating) (1995) (2006) / UK:PG (video rating) (1986) (1993) (2001) (2004) / USA:Approved (MPAA rating: certificate #19156) / USA:TV-G (TV rating) / West Germany:16 (original rating) / West Germany:12 (re-rating)