North by Northwest (1959)

I forgot just how funny Alfred Hitchcock’s early, genius spy-flick thriller “North by Northwest” is, until a recent watch on cable. Coolest Man Ever Cary Grant plays NYC ad guy Roger Thornhill, who gets stuck in a giddily preposterous mistaken identity chase across the U.S. of A with silent killers, the CIA, a dame, and Mount Rushmore all to follow. Early in, Grant as Thornhill is seized by two goons who try to kill him via a bottle of bourbon and a fake DUI car crash. Comedy gold hits: Smashed-ass Grant drives his way to jail, where his first and only call is to his mother. Literally, his mommy. Roger’s indignant. The cop near busts a tooth smirking. Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman (“Sweet Smell of Success”) turn 500 screws, add in murder, a mystery woman (Eva Marie Saint) with stranger/train sex on her inscrutable mind, and James Mason as a smooth villain with his own slippery identity. Oh, and that crop duster. So cool, Bond soon ripped it off. Hitchcock is having a cackling ball, yanking his camera to dizzy high spots, and letting Mason “punch” the screen. Knock out. Hitchcock kills it. A+