Well, for me, the film has to make you feel something. It needs to grab you and involve you in the movie, so that it becomes relevant to you. It should evoke an emotional response. It can be almost any emotion (although, probably not boredom) depending on the type of film, and this may well cause some sort of reaction. E.g., a good comedy should make you laugh, a horror film should scare you, a thriller should thrill you, and an action movie should get your adrenaline going. They’re supposed to move you – isn’t that why they’re called "movies"?

North By Northwest epitomises this notion. It lifts you out of yourself and throws you up on to the screen. There is no moral to this story, no message; it is just pure entertainment. Alfred Hitchcock (and please tell me you knew that he was the director of this film) is known as the "Master of Suspense", and it is into this category that the film must fall. However, it is also a comedy, a romance, a spy movie, and a thriller. It is an action movie before there were such things, back when action meant more than violence.

At first, he thinks it is a joke but the manner, not to mention the guns, of the two men, convinces him that it is something more serious – perhaps kidnap. However, he is mystified when they take him to a mansion and accuse him of being a covert agent. His accuser, who he believes to be the owner of the estate, a Mr. Townsend, calls him George Kaplan, but accepts that he has many aliases. The abductors are not impressed with Thornhill’s bewildered act, and after forcing a quart of bourbon down his throat, they put him in a car and start to set it off over a precipice. Thornhill is just sober enough to get away in the car but then has to try and steer down the winding, precipitous road, while drunk as a skunk. He manages to get away when the police arrest him.

While on a train to Chicago (where he intends to confront Kaplan at the hotel he has left as a forwarding address) he meets an ice-cool blonde, Eve Kendall (played by Eva Marie Saint), who seems too good to be true. She helps him hide from the police and eventually escape from the train. At first we assume this is because she is attracted to him, but then we see her conversing with the man from Townsend’s mansion (James Mason). His name is Vandamm and she is his girlfriend.

When he gets to the hotel he finds out that Kaplan left that morning, heading for Rapid City, South Dakota. He realises it would have been impossible for him to have spoken to Eve on the phone. Just then, Eve appears and he surprises her in her room. She is shocked to see him, but there is something else there – relief? There follows a game of cat-and-mouse and eventually he follows her to an auction house where he meets Vandamm again. Vandamm tells his right-hand man, Leonard (played by Martin Landau) to deal with him, so once again Thornhill gets himself arrested, by disturbing the auction, feeling this is the safer action.

Hopefully, this summary will give you a flavour of the mystery and intrigue which help to make this film such a joy. What it can’t convey, however, is the lightness of touch that Hitchcock and Grant bring to the picture. There are great moments of playful comedy, especially involving Grant’s character’s mother, Clara (Jessie Royce Landis, who wasn’t actually old enough to be Grant’s mother!). There are numerous one-liners scattered throughout the movie, courtesy of a fantastic script by Ernest Lehman.

There are other great set pieces, too. Lehman said he wanted to make a "greatest hits" Hitchcock movie and this is certainly the feel you get when watching it. The crop-dusting scene is a classic, and it came out of a desire by Hitchcock to have a scene where the hero is in a wide-open space with nowhere to run when along comes a tornado. This idea evolved into the one in the film with the actions being mapped out by Lehman pretending to be the plane and Hitchcock the tanker!