Stage Voices

(Peter Rainer's article appeared 1/5 on Bloomberg.)

Cary Grant Clings to Abe’s Nose in ‘Northwest’ Anniversary DVD

When asked to name my favorite movie, my answer is usually “North by Northwest,” Alfred Hitchcock’s exhilarating 1959 thriller. Warner Home Video recently marked the film’s 50th anniversary by releasing a remastered two-disc collection with oodles of extras.

The title may derive from “Hamlet,” but this is one of the least stage-bound movies ever made.

As a debonair Madison Avenue executive mistaken for a U.S. intelligence agent by James Mason’s gang of murderous foreign spies, Cary Grant is hunted across a compass-spinning array of locations. He scurries from New York’s Plaza hotel and United Nations headquarters to the plains of Indiana, the forests of South Dakota and, most memorably, Mount Rushmore, where he and Eva Marie Saint, playing a blond Mata Hari, cling for dear life from what appears to be Abe Lincoln’s nostril.

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