North by Northwest/Funny

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • The auction scene.
  • Just about everything Cary Grant/Roger Thornhill says.

Now you listen to me, I'm an advertising man, not a red herring. I've got a job, a secretary, a mother, two ex-wives and several bartenders that depend upon me, and I don't intend to disappoint them all by getting myself "slightly" killed.

Eve Kendall: What happened with your first two marriages?
Roger Thornhill: My wives divorced me.
Eve Kendall: Why?
Roger Thornhill: They said I led a dull life.
(this conversation took place while they were hanging for dear life on Mount Rushmore)

  • Hitchcock has a few in the trailer:

Have you planned your vacation yet? You've a choice between sand and sunburn, or mountain climbing, and the charley horse. I find it all very enervating, but we should all have some kind of holiday.

  • Hitchcock having a bus door slammed in his face.
  • The scene in the crowded elevator where Roger's mother asks Vandamm's two henchmen "You're not really trying to kill my son, are you?" causing an awkward pause. Then the henchmen fake laughing causing everyone in the elevator but Roger to laugh. The topper is when Roger's mother starts laughing too!
  • Drunken Roger and his mother on the phone being surprised by the Glen Cove police officer's first name: Emil.
  • Roger enters a woman's hospital room. Startled, she exclaims, "Stop!" Then she puts on her glasses, and gets a better look at Roger. Entranced, she asks him once again to "stop," albeit in a more suggestive tone.
  • Vandamn's reaction to Leonard's death is priceless:

That wasn't very sporting, using real bullets.

  • Regarding his big sunglasses:

Clerk: Is something wrong with your eyes?
Thornhill: Yes, they're sensitive to questions, now call them.