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international intrigue in North by Northwest is infused with far less foreboding
and fear and much more wit and ambivalence.18 To be sure, the film evokes
thrills and excitement by placing its main characters in harm s way, even as
it suggests an espionage plot that has swept up an innocent man. Yet, the
debonair Thornhill (played by Cary Grant) never seems genuinely in peril,
and the audience gets the sense that the convoluted case of mistaken identity
will be dispatched before the film s end and that the leading man will come
away unharmed. Even Thornhill s mother seems to react to the supposedly
dire mix-up with a twinkle in her eye and a series of off-handed quips.
Additionally, North by Northwest is a film in which U.S. government agents
behave ambiguously sometimes in a heroic manner but other times decid-
edly not. American agents realize that Thornhill is the victim of mistaken
identity. But at first it seems that the government spymaster (simply called
the Professor throughout the film) does not intend to do anything about
helping the innocent man out of his predicament. (The spymaster is played
by Leo G. Carroll, a Hitchcock regular who later became more famous in the
1960s television series, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) As the film progresses,
Thornhill becomes romantically involved with a young woman named Eve
Kendall (played by Eva Marie Saint) whose loyalties are unclear. It later turns
out that she is a double-agent loyal to the Americans, but that the American
spymaster is willing to jeopardize her life in order to infiltrate the conspir-
acy abroad. The spymaster explains this away as Eve is sent off. Speaking to
Thornhill, the Professor says, War is hell, Mr. Thornhill, even when it s a
cold one.
Two things are significant about Hitchcock s take on the Cold War world
in North by Northwest. First, in this movie audiences do encounter a world
in which there is an implied communist threat involving convoluted plots
undertaken by both sides of the struggle. All of these plots, however, seem
to cancel each other out. The whole situation is presented as a confusing and
ambiguous game. The players take it seriously, but they are not above making
40 Conspiracy Theory in Film, Television, and Politics
jokes and quips. It is a world in which ordinary, everyday people do not seem
very important. Once involved, Thornhill also adopts this attitude. Even
when he is in grave danger, he seldom drops his witty demeanor. Although
Thornhill was undoubtedly intended to be an example of a solid American
citizen, he seems to have little or no interest in ideology, instead reserving his
energies for the romantic pursuit of Eve.
Second, agents of the U.S. government are not really heroes in the film, but
instead are relatively innocuous players in a larger story over which they do not
seem to have much control. From one perspective they, too, seem to exhibit
conspiratorial behaviors that cause them to make questionable judgments.
Their first impulse when Thornhill becomes ensnared in the scheme, for
example, is not to save him because he is an innocent bystander, but rather
to protect their larger purposes by leaving him to fend for himself. In the last
section of the film, the Professor does come to Thornhill s aid and somewhat
rehabilitates the image of the noncaring bureaucrat that is given earlier in the
story. But by then the film has already cast a skeptical eye on U.S. espionage
activities.
Of course, above all Hitchcock was interested in telling a story with thrills,
wit, and romance that audiences would embrace. The Cold War backdrop is
in some ways arbitrary, and the ideological struggle of the era is not central
to the picture s narrative. But Hitchcock s treatment of this context is telling.
The situation is serious and even threatening, but it is more or less taken for
granted and not an all-consuming factor. Thornhill, an advertising man,
remains glib and unflappable throughout, spending little, if any, time think-
ing about his unintended part in the Cold War. In addition, Hitchcock slyly
suggests that the good side in the struggle as exemplified by the Ameri-
can agents may sometimes have their own agendas and may not always be
thinking primarily about the welfare of innocent Americans. In ways such as
these, North by Northwest is an important herald of impending changes in
the public s thinking about conspiracies, which would be far more skeptical
about American institutions than was common in the 1950s. Such changes,
however, would be gradual and would not firmly take hold until the following
decades.
LATE 1950S POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
The tensions of the Cold War never disappeared in the late 1950s, but
Americans adjusted to the underlying anxieties of the nuclear age. Daily
life provided many distractions. The greatly expanding middle class, rising
prosperity, and consumerism took up much of the public s attention.
The Cold War came closer to the doorstep of the United States on January
1, 1959. Although at first this development was not recognized, a new com-
munist threat was emerging only 90 miles from Florida. It was the first day
of the new year when, after a short campaign, a group led by Fidel Castro
The Red Menace and Its Discontents 41
overthrew the regime of Batista y Zaldívar, the Cuban leader whose corrupt
regime had led Cuba into turmoil. For a time, Castro was hailed as a reformer
who would rechart Cuba s course in a new direction. The United States was
initially pleased, taking comfort in the thought that an increasingly noncom-
pliant strongman had been eliminated and replaced with a man who would
be more sympathetic to U.S. interests.
This illusion was soon shattered, however. A short while later, it became
clear that Castro was a communist, a man far different from the person Amer-
ican officials thought he was. Before long, the charismatic Castro emerged as
a leader who was willing to take harsh measures in order to bring about the
changes he envisioned for the island nation. Enemies were often eliminated
and deviation from Marxist-Leninist doctrine was zealously rooted out and
punished. Thus, Castro, who initially was favorably regarded by U.S. offi-
cials, soon came to be regarded as an embarrassing pariah, a man who had
sneaked communism into America s backyard. The magnitude of the threat
to the United States would become apparent in jolting events early in the
next decade.
In 1960, Cold War realities asserted themselves more pointedly in the
months leading up to the presidential campaign. One major incident was
precipitated by the crash landing of an American U-2 plane, a high-altitude
aircraft capable of carrying out surveillance missions over hostile territory.
One of the planes, piloted by United States Air Force officer Francis Gary
Powers, took off from Turkey on a secret mission to photograph sensitive
installations in the Soviet Union. The U-2 was detected, however, and after
an air skirmish was eventually downed.
Although U.S. military authorities knew the plane was missing, at first
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