The Movie
In many ways, North by Northwest is the archetypal Alfred Hitchcock thriller. With a witty, inventive script by Ernest Lehman (who would team with Hitch again on his final film, Family Plot), the famed director infused his movie with glamour and kinetic action, driven by a memorable musical score.
The theme of mistaken identity is a familiar one, as New York City ad man Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) unwittingly steps into a trap set for mysterious government agent George Kaplan. It's 1959, The Cold War is in full swing, and the suave Phillip Vandamm (James Mason) has become a person of interest to the Feds, but catching the slippery traitor will require a complicated game of cat-and-mouse. Several attempted murders follow, culminating in a showdown atop Mount Rushmore. Let the chase begin!
The Picture
Back in the days when Hollywood was thinking up new ways to compete with the small, black-and-white, mono television that was changing the entire entertainment experience worldwide, the VistaVision process was one of the hot technologies conceived to compel moviegoers off the couch. By running the equivalent of two frames of 35mm film (eight perforations along the side instead of the standard four) through the camera when the image was exposed, the resulting image showed much finer grain. The raw aspect ratio was 1.5:1, which was then reformatted for theatrical exhibition anywhere from 1.66:1 to 2:1. The North by Northwest Blu-ray is presented at 1.78:1 (the package incorrectly states 1.85:1), the final product of a reported $1M restoration process and scanned at 8K resolution.
Indeed, the video here is gorgeous, boasting minimal grain, minimal noise, and very few compression artifacts, just a hint in the gradual expanse of a perfect blue sky, for example. The image is not only cleaner than we have any right to expect, but the depth of focus within the frame is also extraordinary.
The Sound
The drone of the now-iconic crop duster really fills the sky, and we can hear it zipping over our heads and banking around for another pass, although most of the time the mix is definitely front-heavy, in keeping with the vintage character of this track. I also had to crank it above my usual volume levels to achieve the proper home theater experience, and in so doing I revealed all sorts of lovely little details in the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. Bernard Hermann's score--one of his all-time best-- is big and hard-hitting, particularly effective both in the mood-setting opening title sequence and the Mount Rushmore climax.
The Extras
All of the bonus features from the 2000 DVD special edition are carried over here, starting with the audio commentary by endearingly old-school screenwriter Ernest Lehman (RIP), along with the music-only track of Bernard Hermann's score in Dolby Digital 5.1. The half-hour "Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest" is now joined by "Cary Grant: A Class Apart," a 2003 Turner Classic Movies special about the timeless leading man (67 minutes), with plenty of clips and many famous admirers.
New for 2009 are "The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style" (57-and-a-half minutes, HD), full of deep insights from other filmmakers, and the more title-specific "North by Northwest: One for the Ages" (25-and-a-half minutes), which appears to have been culled from the same interview sessions as Master's Touch. There's a lot of overlap but each of these docs brings something different, so it's great to have them all together here, and all in HD, although some seem like simple upconversions.
The single disc arrives packaged inside a beautiful hardbound 44-page book.
Final Thoughts
The action may seem rough-around-the-edges, perhaps even a little sparse to first-time viewers, but Hitchcock was educating future generations in the ways of big-screen action, a lesson which still thrills today. I'd wager that this restored, remastered Blu-ray also looks better than the movie did in most theaters, fifty years ago.
Product Details
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