North by Northwest 4K UHD Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason

Firstly, a massive thank you to our Patreon supporters. These supporters have become the single biggest contributing factor to the survival of DVDBeaver. Your assistance is essential to our survival.

What do Patrons receive, that you don't?

1) Our weekly Newsletter and Calendar Updates sent to your Inbox!
2) Access to over 100,000 unpublished screen captures in lossless high-resolution format!

Please consider keeping us in existence with a couple of dollars or more each month (your pocket change! / a coffee!) so we can continue to do our best in giving you timely, thorough reviews, calendar updates and detailed comparisons. I am indebted to your generosity.

Search DVDBeaver

S E A R C H D V D B e a v e r

USA 1959

While preparing “Vertigo”, Hitchcock was taken ill and during his convalescence, he had read the book “The Wreck of Mary Deare”, which impressed him to such a degree, that he decided for it to become his next project. He subsequently made a one picture deal with MGM to film it. To write the screenplay, Hitchcock took Ernest Lehman onboard, and while he wasn’t that impressed with the book, actually thinking the book wouldn’t make a good film, he wouldn’t miss the chance to work with Hitchcock. Lehman and Hitchcock would meet and spend the day talking, but each time Lehman began talking about the film, Hitchcock became distressed. It became obvious to Lehman, that Hitchcock had no idea how to turn the book into a film, which again stressed him more, as he was less than enthusiastic about writing it. Eventually, Lehman told Hitchcock, that he wouldn’t write it, to which Hitchcock relaxed said, “then we do something else.” Discussing what that something else should be, Lehman eventually told Hitchcock, that he wanted to make a Hitchcock film to end all Hitchcock films, and thus “North by Northwest” was born.

During the following weeks, Hitchcock and Lehman would then sit and talk about different story elements, which eventually turned into an idea, which then took shape and finally became the script. The story is a concoction of various ideas Hitchcock always wanted to make, of paraphrasing different Hitchcock films and themes and so forth, for instance Hitchcock’s idea, to have a speaker at the UN become more and more agitated about a member who was sleeping during the speech, only to discover he actually was dead. Eventually, it all began to take a shape and later on turned into a story.

Roger O. Thornhill is your everyday Madison Avenue advertising man, who gets mistaken for the spy George Kaplan. Escaping a staged accident, he is determined to find out what its all about, but instead of answers, he finds himself on the run from the police, being a murder suspect, and from the those who set him up and want him dead. The problem is however, that George Kaplan doesn’t exist, but is a phantom created by an intelligence agency, a decoy, so that the real spy isn’t uncovered.

“North by Northwest” is the definitive Hitchcock film. It is a celebration of everything that Hitchcock is about: stunning set pieces, seductive blondes, espionage, double chase motif, mistaken identities, innocent accused, macguffin’s, trains, Hitchcockian wit and Cary Grant. In short, all of Hitchcock’s dreams and nightmares in overdrive.

As with all of Hitchcock’s films, it deals with loss of identity. Here even more, as Roger O Thornhill really doesn’t have an identity to begin with. He is still attached to his mother and the middle initial, “O”, stands for nothing (except an in-joke about David O. Selznick). As Donald Spoto notes, the film is about self-realization. Once he unwillingly becomes George Kaplan, he becomes a man of action, rather than a man of excuses, thereby gaining a personality, an identity and realizing himself.

It is no coincidence that Cary Grant became the lead. He was Hitchcock’s favourite actor, more than that, he was Hitchcock’s dream projection of himself. “North by Northwest” can thus be seen as a homage, not only to himself, but also to Grant and to acting.

A key motif is make-believe and Hitchcock even creates somewhat of a parallelism between advertising and espionage, as “in advertising, there is no such thing as a lie”, which one might as well say about the world of espionage. Both worlds live by deceiving others, in fact their survival depends upon it.

“North by Northwest” became Hitchcock’s greatest box office success, only beaten by Wyler's “Ben Hur”, and today it is the most seen and most celebrated of his films. It is a film made by one of the greatest masters of cinema at the height of his career, it is a declaration of love to everything his art was about and thus the definitive Hitchcock film. A timeless masterpiece.

Henrik Sylow

Posters

Theatrical Release: July 17, 1959

Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews

Review: Warner - Region FREE - 4K UHD

Box Cover		CLICK to order from: Also available in a 4K Ultra HD steelbook in the US: Bonus Captures:
Distribution	Warner - Region FREE - 4K Ultra HD
Runtime	2:16:22.507
Video	1.85:1 2160P 4K Ultra HD Disc Size: 98,438,588,626 bytes Feature: 75,511,444,800 bytes Video Bitrate:62.79 Mbps Codec: HEVC Video
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate 4K Ultra HD:
Audio	Dolby TrueHD/Atmos Audio English 3154 kbps 7.1 / 48 kHz / 2706 kbps / 16-bit (AC3 Embedded: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 448 kbps / DN -31dB) DTS-HD Master Audio English 1802 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1802 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 2.0 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit) DUBs: Dolby Digital Audio French 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB Dolby Digital Audio German 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB Dolby Digital Audio Italian 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB Dolby Digital Audio Spanish 192 kbps 1.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB Commentary: Dolby Digital Audio English 192 kbps 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -27dB
Subtitles	English (SDH), French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Chinese , Korean , None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Warner 1.85:1 2160P 4K Ultra HD Disc Size: 98,438,588,626 bytes Feature: 75,511,444,800 bytes Video Bitrate:62.79 Mbps Codec: HEVC Video Edition Details: • Audio Commentary by Ernest Lehman • Cinematography, Score and the Art of the Edit - North by Northwest (23:06) • "The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style" documentary (57:31 SD) • "Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest" documentary (39:26 SD) • "North by Northwest: One for the Ages" documentary (25:30) • A Guided Tour With Alfred Hitchcock (3:16) 4K Ultra HD Release Date: November 18th, 2024 Black 4K Ultra HD Case Chapters 46

Comments:

NOTE: The below Blu-ray and 4K UHD captures were taken directly from the respective discs.

ADDITION: Warner 4K UHD (November 2024): Warner have transferred Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest to 4K UHD. The Warner 4K UHD has HDR.

It is likely that the monitor you are seeing this review is not an HDR-compatible display (High Dynamic Range) or Dolby Vision, where each pixel can be assigned with a wider and notably granular range of color and light. Our capture software if simulating the HDR (in a uniform manner) for standard monitors. This should make it easier for us to review more 4K UHD titles in the future and give you a decent idea of its attributes on your system. So our captures may not support the exact same colors (coolness of skin tones, brighter or darker hues etc.) as the 4K system at your home. But the framing, detail, grain texture support etc. are, generally, not effected by this simulation representation.

The 2012 Blu-ray was encoded via VC-1 and in the 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This new 2160P is in the 1.85:1 and is an impressive upgrade. Colors become richer, detail and grain advance plus there is more information in the frame now. The image is also brighter and on my system looked absolutely flawless. Overall a fabulous and appreciated HD presentation upgrade.

"There are several different framings of “North by Northwest”. The MGM laserdisc had the AR of 1.66:1, the Criterion had 1.75:1, the DVD (and 2012 Blu-ray) is in 1.78:1. “North by Northwest” was shot in VistaVision, basic aspect ratio of 1.66:1, but it was the property of MGM, who framed their widescreen releases into 1.75:1. This was before 1.85:1 became a standard widescreen format and when each studio had their own unique widescreen format. One can thus think of the 1.66:1 VistaVision ratio as open matte, while the MGM ratio of 1.75:1 was the Original Theatrical Aspect Ratio. It remains to be said, that during the 60s, re-releases of “North by Northwest” was reformatted into 1.85:1, as this format became the standard. Please note, that this is my guess, in order to answer for the various aspect ratios." - Henrik Sylow

We have reviewed the following 4K UHD packages recently: Paper Moon, Bob le Flambeur (NO HDR applied to disc), Play Misty for Me (software uniformly simulated HDR), Signs (software uniformly simulated HDR), A Simple Plan (software uniformly simulated HDR), Fright, The Tenant (software uniformly simulated HDR), Gummo, Demon Pond, Happiness, Cheeky (software uniformly simulated HDR), Produced By Val Lewton , The Long Good Friday, The Ladykillers (software uniformly simulated HDR), Torso (software uniformly simulated HDR), All of Us Strangers, Last Year at Marienbad (NO HDR applied to disc), Peril & Distress (And Soon the Darkness / Sudden Terror) (NO HDR applied to disc), The Case of the Bloody Iris (software uniformly simulated HDR), Reptilicus (software uniformly simulated HDR), Risky Business (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Conversation (software uniformly simulated HDR), Perfect Days, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) (software uniformly simulated HDR), Le samouraï (software uniformly simulated HDR), Castle of Blood (software uniformly simulated HDR), Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (HDR), Fist of Legend (HDR), American Gigolo (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Long Wait (no HDR,) Bound (software uniformly simulated HDR), The Valiant Ones (software uniformly simulated HDR), Mute Witness (software uniformly simulated HDR), Narc (software uniformly simulated HDR), Peeping Tom (software uniformly simulated HDR), Dr. Terrors House of Horrors (software uniformly simulated HDR), High Noon (software uniformly simulated HDR), Picnic at Hanging Rock (Criterion) (software uniformly simulated HDR)

NOTE: We have added 48 more large resolution 4K UHD captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE

Universal's 4K UHD offer the option of an authentic DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) OR a robust remixed Dolby Atmos 7.1 surround track as well as including foreign language DUBs.

NOTE: For Atmos - many non-compliant systems will recognizes it as TrueHD 7.1, but from Wikipedia: "Because of limited bandwidth and lack of processing power, Atmos in home theaters is not a real-time mix rendered the same way as in cinemas. The substream is added to Dolby TrueHD or Dolby Digital Plus. This substream only represents a losslessly encoded fully object-based mix. This substream does not include all 128 objects separated. This is not a matrix-encoded channel, but a spatially-encoded digital channel. Atmos in home theaters can support 24.1.10 channel, but it is not an object-based real-time rendering. Filmmakers need to remix and render the TrueHD and Dolby Digital Plus soundtracks with Dolby Media Producer."

Purists will opt for the mono rather than the surround. The former still carries depth in gunshots, plane (and its crash,) explosions and other effects. The highly memorable score is by the incomparable Bernard Herrmann (Vertigo, Blue Denim, Beneath the 12-Mile Reef, Cape Fear, The Magnificent Ambersons, Taxi Driver, The Wrong Man, The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, Mysterious Island, Jason and the Argonauts, Obsession, Hangover Square, etc. etc.) sounding magnificent in the lossless. There are subtitle options including English SDH, and other choices and the 4K UHD is Region 'Free' playable worldwide.

The Warner 4K UHD offers the existing commentary by Ernest Lehman and 40-minute "Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest". "The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style" is a 2009 documentary by Gary Leva. It runs almost an hour. It has input from William Friedkin, Curtis Hanson, Martin Scorsese and Guillermo del Toro discussing The Master's filmic style. It's quite interesting. "North by Northwest: One for the Ages" is another Leva documentary from 2009 running 25 minutes. While these were in SD on the 2012 Blu-ray, they are now in 1080P on Warner's 4K UHD disc. Cinematography, Score, and the Art of the Edit is a 23-minute documentary that explores the collaborations between cinematographer Robert Burks, editor George Tomasini and director Alfred Hitchcock. Lastly is the 3-minute "Guided Tour With Alfred Hitchcock" trailer for the film with Hitchcock presenting himself as the owner of Alfred Hitchcock Travel Agency and telling the viewer he has made a motion picture to advertise these wonderful vacation stops.

Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest is in the very top tier of the director's work along with Psycho, Rear Window, Vertigo , Shadow of a Doubt, and The Birds. It has been described as a paranoid thriller, although we know that just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you. The greater theme involves 'consequences of mistaken identity' dealt with in Hichcock's earlier The Wrong Man. "North by Northwest" is quintessential Hitchcock from Bernard Herrmann to Saul Bass bringing back super-dapper Cary Grant after Suspicion and Notorious. It has been called "Alfred Hitchcock's most stylish thriller, if not his best." Agreed. Adventures in UN buildings, cornfields, femme fatale train dalliances, and culminating at Mount Rushmore all lead this to be a fully rewatchable masterpiece. Warner's 4K UHD of North by Northwest looks and sounds magnificent. Our highest recommendation.

Gary Tooze

Menus / Extras

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Subtitle Sample - Warner - Region FREE - 4K Ultra HD