I've watched Hitchcock's Rope, Rear Window, Psycho and Vertigo. Honestly, North by Northwest is perhaps the least bright among all. It doesn't have the suspense of Psycho, camera-work of Vertigo, smart setup as Rear Window and witty banter as Rope. In fact, with the blockbuster movie like that, I'm surprised at the slow moving storyline, even the explosion of the airplane was not thrilling.

I'm not going to give a summary of the movie since others have done it aptly, but there are flaws in the movies which they fail to point out; the most obvious one is that the movie did not once attempt to explain why the thugs think that Cary Grant is an FBI agent. Sure, it was a case of mistaken identity, but why him in particular?

Also, there were some parts, which are unneccessary at all, and would not suffer if they were edited out; all the better they should be edited out because it would only slow the pace of the over-2-hour movie. Such scenes, I can easily think of, are the scenes with Cary Grant waiting in the open fields, as if he was cruising.

Hitchcock seems to want to play with the Oedipal relationship between Cary Grant's character and his mother but this doesn't seem to work out. The relationship has only slight undertones of Oedipal, yet it offers no insight to Grant's character development and it doesn't carry through the movie. The mother disappears 1/3 through the movie, as if there wasn't such a character at all. The Oedipal relationship is, in another words, quite useless to the development of the plot.

Not Hitchcock's finest.
I've watched Hitchcock's Rope, Rear Window, Psycho and Vertigo. Honestly, North by Northwest is perhaps the least bright among all. It doesn't have the suspense of Psycho, camera-work of Vertigo, smart setup as Rear Window and witty banter as Rope. In fact, with the blockbuster movie like that, I'm surprised at the slow moving storyline, even the explosion of the airplane was not thrilling. I'm not going to give a summary of the movie since others have done it aptly, but there are flaws in the movies which they fail to point out; the most obvious one is that the movie did not once attempt to explain why the thugs think that Cary Grant is an FBI agent. Sure, it was a case of mistaken identity, but why him in particular? Also, there were some parts, which are unneccessary at all, and would not suffer if they were edited out; all the better they should be edited out because it would only slow the pace of the over-2-hour movie. Such scenes, I can easily think of, are the scenes with Cary Grant waiting in the open fields, as if he was cruising. Hitchcock seems to want to play with the Oedipal relationship between Cary Grant's character and his mother but this doesn't seem to work out. The relationship has only slight undertones of Oedipal, yet it offers no insight to Grant's character development and it doesn't carry through the movie. The mother disappears 1/3 through the movie, as if there wasn't such a character at all. The Oedipal relationship is, in another words, quite useless to the development of the plot. Not Hitchcock's finest.