Roger Thornhill, played by Cary Grant, is an advertising
executive in New York, living at
the top of the world. So he is surprised that several unpleasant men, including
Philip Vandamm, played with great menace by James Mason, and his right hand
thug Leonard, played by Martin Landau, insist that he is a government agent. In
the course of the movie he is almost murdered several times, once by being put
into a speeding car, drunk, with broken brakes, and once by a crop duster. He
is framed for murder at the UN and is forced to flee across the United
States by train. He is desperate to find out
who this government agent whim he has been mistaken for is and to clear his
name. After all, he has several ex wives, bartenders, and tailors to support.
There are compensations. Thornhill gets to share a train
compartment with Eve Kendell, played by Eva Marie Saint. Who wouldn’t want to do that, no matter what
the dangers involved? But who is she working for? For the good guys? For the
men trying to kill Thornhill? For herself?
There are some wonderful set pieces. The aforementioned crop
duster attack is one. The sequence at the Frank Lloyd Wright is another. But
the best, of course, is the final confrontation on top of Mount
Rushmore.
The film has a good performance by Leo Carroll as a spy
master, who would play a similar role later in the TV series, The Man from
Uncle, as well as one by Jessie Landis, as Thornhill’s formidable mother.