North by Northwest

North by NorthWest

North by Northwest (1959) is a thriller film, directed by Alfred Hitchock; featuring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The story was written by Ernest Lehman. 

The tale is a story of mistaken identity, in which our innocent protagonist, Cary Grant, is believed to be an American secret-agent called Kaplan, and he is pursued by a mysterious organisation as they believe he is trying to thwart their progress to smuggle out micro-film. (The micro film is the movie's MacGuffin)

There are many examples of suspense in this film, for example, when Cary Grant is being chases through the train station. As the audience, we are on the edge of our seat, hoping that he can out-run the guards! Here, we can also see him out-witting his assailants when he goes into the bathroom. He gets out of his stolen guard uniform and changes himself to look like an average man just shaving in the train station's bathroom.

Another example of him outwitting his enemies is when he is hiding in the villains house, and trying to catch the attention of the double agent Eva Marie Saint. He manages to write a message on a matchbox for her to read, without exposing himself to the rest of the villains in the house.

Also, there are so many elements of frequent action. One example is when he is being chased and shot out by the crop-duster plane. He manages to run, dive and hide, however they keep finding him. He manages to outwit his enemy and force the plane to crash into an oil truck, in which it explodes, killing his enemy.