Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest (1959) is a breathless concoction of thrills, romance, and wry humor, deftly blended into one of the most exhilarating specimens of Hollywood’s Golden Age. This stylish caper stands out as a quintessential exercise in controlled chaos in a filmography rife with masterful suspense. Starring Cary Grant at his debonair best, alongside Eva Marie Saint and James Mason, Hitchcock crafts a cat-and-mouse game that careens from Manhattan’s concrete jungle to the windswept plains of South Dakota. From its kaleidoscopic Saul Bass opening titles to Bernard Herrmann’s pulsating score, North by Northwest announces itself as a film in perpetual motion. The screenplay, penned with razor-sharp wit by Ernest Lehman, is an ingenious series of escapades sparked by mistaken identity. Grant’s Roger Thornhill, a Manhattan ad man in perpetual command of quippy rejoinders and martini orders, is mistaken for George Kaplan, a non-existent government agent, by a cabal of sua...