North by Northwest is a 1959 American action spy-thriller film, produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. The screenplay was by Ernest Lehman, who wanted to write "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures". North by Northwest is a tale of mistaken identity, with an innocent man pursued across the United States by agents of a mysterious organization trying to prevent him from blocking their plan to smuggle microfilm, which contains government secrets, out of the country. This is one of several Hitchcock films that feature a music score by Bernard Herrmann and an opening title sequence by graphic designer Saul Bass, and was the first to feature extended use of kinetic typography in its opening credits. North by Northwest is listed among the canonical Hitchcock films of the 1950s and is often listed among the greatest films of all time. It was selected in 1995 for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". After its first screening, reviewers for The New Yorker and The New York Times immediately hailed it as a masterpiece of comedic, sophisticated self-parody. Plot In 1958 New York City, a waiter pages "George Kaplan" at the Plaza Hotel's Oak Room restaurant after a pair of thugs presumably requests him to do so. As advertising executive Roger Thornhill summons the same waiter, he is mistaken for Kaplan, kidnapped by the thugs and brought to the estate of Lester Townsend. He is interrogated by spy Phillip Vandamm, a Cold War enemy of the United States, who poses as Townsend to Thornhill. Vandamm arranges Thornhill's death in a staged drunk-driving accident. Thornhill survives, but fails to convince his mother and the police about the happenings, even after revisiting Townsend's estate. During the visit, Thornhill learns Townsend is a United Nations diplomat. Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan's empty hotel room at the Plaza. After Thornhill answers Kaplan's phone, the thugs, who had called the number from the lobby, begin their pursuit. Thornhill heads to the U.N. General Assembly Building to meet Townsend, who is a different man from Vandamm. One of the pursuing thugs throws a knife, killing Townsend, who collapses in Thornhill's arms. Thornhill is photographed as he grabs the knife, giving the appearance that he is the murderer; he then flees, attempting