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North by Northwest

1959 film by Alfred Hitchcock

North by Northwest is a 1959 film about an advertising executive who is mistaken for a spy and is pursued across the country while he looks for a way to survive.

Theatrical poster for North by Northwest
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Ernest Lehman.
The Master of Suspense presents a 3000-mile chase across America! Taglines

Roger Thornhill

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  • Ah, Maggie, in the world of advertising, there's no such thing as a lie. There's only the expedient exaggeration. You ought to know that.
  • Mother, this is your son, Roger Thornhill...No, no, Mother. I have not been drinking. No, no. These two men, they poured a whole bottle of bourbon into me. No, they didn't give me a chaser.

Others

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  • Clara Thornhill: You gentlemen aren't really trying to kill my son, are you?
  • The Professor: We do nothing...That's right, nothing. Oh, we could congratulate ourselves on a marvelous stroke of good fortune. Our non-existent decoy George Kaplan created to divert suspicion from our actual agent has fortuitously become a live decoy... What can we do to save him, without endangering our own agent?...We didn't invent our non-existent man and give him the name of George Kaplan, establish elaborate behavior patterns for him, move his prop belongings in and out of hotel rooms for our own private amusement. We created George Kaplan and labored successfully to convince Vandamm that this was our own agent hot on his trail for a desperately important reason...If we make the slightest move to suggest that there is no such agent as George Kaplan, give any hint to Vandamm that he's pursuing a decoy instead of our own agent, then our agent working right under Vandamm's very nose will immediately face suspicion, exposure and assassination, like the two others who went before.
  • Vandamm: That wasn't very sporting, using real bullets.

Dialogue

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Roger: And what the devil is all this about? Why was I brought here?
Vandamm: Games, must we?
Roger: Not that I mind a slight case of abduction now and then, but I have tickets for the theatre this evening, to a show I was looking forward to and I get, well, kind of unreasonable about things like that.
Vandamm: With such expert play-acting, you make this very room a theatre. My secretary is a great admirer of your methods, Mr. Kaplan. Elusiveness, however misguided ...
Roger: My name is Thornhill, Roger Thornhill! It's never been anything else ... So obviously, your friends picked up the wrong package when they bundled me out here in the car.
[Roger is wearing sunglasses to hide his identity]
Ticket Seller: Something wrong with your eyes?
Roger: Yes, they're sensitive to questions.
Roger: Oh, you're that type.
Eve: What type?
Roger: Honest.
Eve: Not really.
Roger: Good, because honest women frighten me.
Eve: Why?
Roger: I don't know. Somehow they seem to put me at a disadvantage.
Eve: Because you're not honest with them?
Roger: Exactly.
...
Roger: The moment I meet an attractive woman, I have to start pretending I have no desire to make love to her.
Eve: What makes you think you have to conceal it?
Roger: She might find the idea objectionable.
Eve: Then again, she might not.
...
Eve: I'm Eve Kendall. I'm twenty-six and unmarried. Now you know everything.
Roger: Tell me. What do you do besides lure men to their doom on the Twentieth Century Limited?
Eve: I'm an industrial designer.
Roger: Jack Phillips. Western sales manager for Kingby Electronics.
Eve: No, you're not. You're Roger Thornhill of Madison Avenue, and you're wanted for murder on every front page in America, and don't be so modest.
Roger: Whoops!
Eve: Oh, don't worry, I won't say a word.
Roger: How come?
Eve: I told you. It's a nice face.
Roger: Is that the only reason?
Eve: It's going to be a long night.
Roger: True.
Eve: And I don't particularly like the book I've started.
Roger: Ahhh.
Eve: You know what I mean?
Roger: Uh, let me think. [Pause] Yes, I know exactly what you mean...
Eve: I'm a big girl.
Roger: Yeah, and in all the right places too. [They share a lingering kiss.]
Eve: You know, this is ridiculous, you know that don't you?
Roger: Yesss.
Eve: I mean, we've hardly met.
Roger: That's right.
Eve: How do I know you aren't a murderer?
Roger: You don't.
Eve: Maybe you're planning to murder me right here tonight?
Roger: Shall I?
Eve: Please do. [Another long kiss.]
Roger: Beats flying, doesn't it?
Eve: We should stop.
Roger: Immediately.
Eve: I want to know more about you.
Roger: What more could you know?
Eve: You're an advertising man, that's all I know.
Roger: That's right. [They shift positions] The train's a little unsteady.
Eve: Who isn't?
Roger: What else do you know?
Eve: You've got taste in clothes, taste in food...
Roger: ...and taste in women. I like your flavor.
Eve: You're very clever with words. You can probably make them do anything for you. Sell people things they don't need. Make women who don't know you fall in love with you.
Roger: I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid.
Roger: Now where were we?
Eve: Here. [They kiss again passionately.]
Roger: Yes. Nice of you to have opened the bed.
Eve: Yes.
Roger: Only one bed.
Eve: Yes.
Roger: That's a good omen, don't you think?
Eve: Wonderful.
Roger: You know what that means?
Eve: Hmmm.
Roger: What? Tell me.
Eve: It means you're going to sleep on the floor.
Roger: To a long and lasting friendship, meaning from now on, I'm not going to let you out of my sight, sweetheart.
Eve: I'm afraid you'll have to.
Roger: Oh no.
Eve: I do have plans of my own, you know, and you do have problems.
Roger: Well, wouldn't it be nice if my problems and your plans were somehow connected? Then we could always stay close to each other and not have to go off in separate directions. Togetherness, you know what I mean?
Eve: I want you to do a favor for me. A big, big favor.
Roger: Name it.
Eve: I want you to leave right now. Stay far away from me and don't come near me again. We're not going to get involved. Last night was last night and it's all there was and that's all there is. There isn't going to be anything more between us. So please, goodbye, good luck, no conversation, just leave.
Roger: Now, what can a man do with his clothes off for twenty minutes? Couldn't he have taken an hour?
Eve: You could always take a cold shower. [she takes off his jacket]
Roger: That's right. When I was a little boy, I wouldn't even let my mother undress me.
Eve: You're a big boy now.
Roger: Yes, tell me. How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?
Eve: Lucky, I guess.
Roger: No, not lucky. Naughty, wicked, up to no good. Ever kill anyone? Because I bet you could tease a man to death without half trying. So stop trying, huh?
Leonard: You must have had some doubts about her yourself. You still do.
Vandamm: Rubbish.
Leonard: Why else would you have decided not to tell her that our little treasure here has a belly full of microfilm?
Vandamm: You seem to be trying to fill mine with rotten apples.
Leonard: Sometimes the truth does taste like a mouthful of worms.
Vandamm: The truth? I've heard nothing but innuendos.
Leonard: Call it my woman's intuition, if you will, but I've never trusted neatness. Neatness is always the result of deliberate planning.
Vandamm: What possessed you to come blundering in here like this? Could it be an overpowering interest in art?
Roger: Yes, the art of survival.
Eve: He followed me here from the hotel.
Leonard: He was in your room?
Roger: Sure. Isn't everybody?
...
Roger: I didn't realize you were an art collector. I thought you just collected corpses...I'll bet you paid plenty for this little piece of sculpture...She's worth every dollar of it, take it from me. She puts her heart into her work. In fact, her whole body.
Vandamm: Has anyone ever told you that you overplay your various roles rather severely, Mr. Kaplan? First, you're the outraged Madison Avenue man who claims he's been mistaken for someone else. Then you play the fugitive from justice, supposedly trying to clear his name of a crime he knows he didn't commit. And now, you play the peevish lover, stung by jealousy and betrayal. It seems to me you fellows could stand a little less training from the FBI and a little more from the Actors Studio.
Roger: Apparently, the only performance that will satisfy you is when I play dead.
Vandamm: Your very next role. You'll be quite convincing, I assure you.
Roger: I wonder what subtle form of manslaughter is next on the program. Am I to be dropped into a vat of molten steel and become part of a new skyscraper, or are you going to ask this female to kiss me again and poison me to death?
[Eve tries to slap him]
Roger: Who are you kidding? You have no feelings to hurt.
Roger: Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.
The Professor: If I thought there was any chance of changing your mind, I'd talk about Miss Kendall, of whom you so obviously disapprove.
Roger: Yes, for using sex like some people use a fly swatter.
Leonard: You're not taking her on the plane with you?
Vandamm: Of course I am. Like our friends, I too believe in neatness, Leonard. This matter is best disposed of from a great height, over water.
Eve: I guess I had nothing to do that weekend, so I decided to fall in love.
Roger: That's nice.
Eve: Eventually, the Professor and his Washington colleagues approached me with a few sordid details about Philip. They told me that my relationship with him made me uniquely valuable to them.
Roger: Mm-mmm. So you became a Girl Scout, huh?
Eve: Maybe it was the first time anyone ever asked me to do anything worthwhile.
Roger: Has life been like that?
Eve: Mm-mmm.
Roger: How come?
Eve: Men like you!
Roger: What's wrong with men like me?
Eve: They don't believe in marriage.
Roger: I've been married twice.
Eve: See what I mean?
Roger: Now I may go back to hating you: it was more fun. [They kiss passionately]
Roger: If we ever get out of this alive, let's go back to New York on the train together, all right?
Eve: Is that a proposition?
Roger: It's a proposal, sweetie.
Eve: What happened to the first two marriages?
Roger: My wives divorced me.
Eve: Why?
Roger: Well, I think they said I led too dull a life.

Taglines

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  • The Master of Suspense presents a 3000-mile chase across America!
  • The Master of Suspense weaves his greatest tale!
  • It's a deadly game of "tag" and Cary Grant is "it"!
  • It's love and murder at first sight!
  • From the killer plane in the cornfield to the cliff-hanger on George Washington's nose, it's suspense in every direction!

Cast

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