Hitchcocks North By Northwest: The Birth of the Modern Action Film

1959 was an exciting year in the history of filmmaking. An extraordinary conjunction of talent throughout the globe existed. In France, Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette, and Resnais all directed their first films, thus establishing the French New Wave. In Italy, Fellini created the elegant La Dolce Vita, and Antonioni gave us L’avventura. Most importantly, though, in America, famed British director Alfred Hitchcock gave us the classic thriller North by Northwest, the father of the modern action film.

Throughout the history of filmmaking, many different genres have thrived such as the romantic comedy, giving us such classics as Bringing up Baby and His Girl Friday. The war film gave us All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory. The western gave us Stagecoach and The Searchers. Film Noir gave us such films as Sunset Boulevard and Chinatown. The one modern film genre not existing prior to 1959 was that of the modern action film whose entrance as a genre was inaugurated with the release of Hitchcock’s psychopolitical thriller North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant.

North by Northwest is your basic espionage thriller involving mistaken identity and a government conspiracy. Cary Grant plays advertising executive Roger Thornhill, who, one evening at his usual club calls over the page boy when his is paging a Mr. George Kaplan. Two mysterious men observing Grant get the idea that Mr. Thornhill is Mr. Kaplan, not simply a man talking to a boy who is paging him. Believing him to be Mr. Kaplan, the two men kidnap Thornhill at gunpoint and whisk him away to a beautiful mansion somewhere outside the city.

An important discussion point is that as to which type of hero Roger Thornhill is. The action hero created through North by Northwest is that of the everyman, only man attractive and witty. He is a reluctant, yet brave, hero. Thornhill is unafraid to make an attempted escape while he is in the captive of these two men.

Thornhill is confronted at the house by a vaguely European fellow who demands answers from him. This usage of the seemingly upper class Eurotrash villain will permeate throughout the action film genre from the Die Hard movies to The Fifth Element. Thornhill, of course, has no answers for the man. While being held captive in a library, Cary quips, “I’ll catch up on my reading.” When they believe his as simply being uncooperative, the...

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...ty directly onto the bed of a private room on a train. Lacking the ability to end the picture with a sex scene, Hitchcock cheekily ends the picture with a shot of a train going into a tunnel.

What marks North by Northwest as the father of the modern action film is that of its hero. He is a contemporary man, with a decent and respectful job (here an advertising executive). As opposed to the heroes of Westerns, who are dark and mysterious characters with shady pasts, in the action film the hero is likeable, attractive, and witty. What made Cary Grant so perfect for the role of Thornhill is that he is attractive to both men and women. “Cary Grant is the male love object,” said Pauline Kael. “Men want to be as lucky and enviable as he is—they want to be like him. And women imagine landing him.” The influence of North by Northwest on the action and spy film is immeasurable. It influenced the James Bond series, the Die Hard movies, and even science fiction films such as Total Recall. What Hitchcock did, basically, was create an action film of such quality that directors ever since have been trying to equal its success in story, action, and characterization.