Initial release: July 17, 1959
Running time: 136 minutes
Description
Advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for "George Kaplan" and kidnapped by Valerian (Adam Williams) and Licht (Robert Ellenstein). The two take him to theLong Island estate of Lester Townsend. There he is interrogated by a man he assumes to be Townsend, but who is actually spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Vandamm orders his right-hand man Leonard (Martin Landau) to get rid of Thornhill.
Thornhill is forced to drink bourbon, but manages to escape a staged driving accident. He is unable to get the authorities or even his mother (Jessie Royce Landis) to believe what happened, especially when a woman at Townsend's residence says he got drunk at her dinner party; she also remarks that Townsend is a United Nations diplomat.
Thornhill and his mother go to Kaplan's hotel room. While there, Thornhill answers the phone; it is one of Vandamm's henchmen. Narrowly avoiding recapture, he goes to the U.N. General Assembly building to see Townsend, but finds that the diplomat is a stranger. Valerian throws a knife which hits Townsend in the back. He falls dead into Thornhill's arms. Without thinking, Thornhill removes the knife, making it appear that he is the killer. He is forced to flee.
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Thornhill (Grant) on the run, attempting to travel incognito.
Knowing that Kaplan has a reservation at a Chicago hotel the next day, Thornhill sneaks onto the 20th Century Limited. He meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint), who hides Thornhill from policemen searching the train. Unbeknownst to Thornhill, Eve is working with Vandamm and Leonard, who are in another compartment. In Chicago, Eve tells Thornhill she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan.
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Thornhill (Grant) stopping a truck while being attacked by the crop-duster plane. (Screenshot from the film trailer.)
Thornhill travels by bus to an isolated crossroads with flat countryside all around. Another man (Malcolm Atterbury) is dropped off at the bus stop, but he eventually leaves on another bus. Then a crop duster goes into a dive toward Thornhill, narrowly missing him. He hides in a cornfield, but the airplane dusts it with pesticide, forcing him out. Desperate, he steps in front of a speeding tank truck, which stops barely in time. The airplane crashes into the tanker.
Learning that Kaplan had already checked out before Eve claimed to have met him, Thornhill goes to Eve's room. While he is cleaning up, she leaves. From the impression of a message written on a notepad, he learns her destination: an art auction. There, he finds Vandamm, Leonard, and Eve. Vandamm purchases a Tarascan statue and departs. Thornhill tries to follow, only to find the exits covered by Valerian and Leonard. Trapped, he places nonsensical bids so that the police will be called to escort him away.
Thornhill identifies himself as the fugitive wanted for Townsend's murder, but the officers are ordered to take him to the Professor (Leo G. Carroll), a spymaster. The Professor reveals that Kaplan does not exist. He was invented to distract Vandamm from the real government agent: Eve. As he has inadvertently put Eve's life in danger, Thornhill agrees to help maintain her cover.
In Rapid City, South Dakota, Thornhill (now pretending to be Kaplan) meets Eve and Vandamm in a crowded cafeteria. He offers to let Vandamm leave the country in exchange for Eve, but is turned down. Thornhill grabs her arm, Eve shoots him and flees. He is taken away, apparently dead. Thornhill is actually unharmed, having been shot with blanks. He learns, to his dismay, that Eve, having made herself a fugitive, will accompany Vandamm out of the country that night. The Professor has Thornhill locked up to keep from interfering further.
Thornhill escapes and sneaks inside Vandamm's mountainside residence. He overhears that the statue contains microfilm. While Eve is away Leonard fires her gun at Vandamm, demonstrating the shooting was faked. Vandamm decides to throw Eve out of the airplane once they are airborne. Thornhill manages to warn her.
On the way to the airplane Eve grabs the statue, and she and Thornhill flee across the face of the Mount Rushmore monument. Valerian lunges at them but falls to his death. Eve slips and clings desperately to the steep mountainside. Thornhill grabs her hand while precariously holding on with his other hand. Leonard appears and grinds his shoe on Thornhill's hand. A police marksman shoots Leonard. Vandamm is taken into custody.
The scene transitions from Thornhill pulling Eve to safety on Mount Rushmore to him pulling her, now his wife, onto an upper bunk on a train. The final shot shows their train speeding into a tunnel.
Trailer
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