North By Northwest

The first Thriller we watched as a class was 'North by Northwest'. This is a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1959 starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. It is about Roger Thornhill, a New York advertising executive, who gets mistaken for the mysterious George Kaplan by an organization. Many classic techniques are used in this Thriller such as:

MacGuffin - The organization trying to kill Roger Thornhill are trying to prevent him from interfering with there plans to smuggle the microfilm out of the country

Red Herring - When Eve Kendell pretends to shoot Thornhill, the audience think he is dead then we later find out it was a set up and he really isn't dead.

Cliffhanger - The audience are on the edge of their seats in the final scene on top of Mount Rushmore.

Furthermore many other techniques are used to keep the audience entertained like suspense, tension, violence, fast paced chases, action ect. I thoroughly enjoyed this Thriller because of these things.

There are also many famous scenes in this film such as the auction house, the pretend shooting and probably the most famous thrilling scene which will be remembered for a long time is the crop scene where Thornhill is being chased by the plane trying to kill him.