What if James Bond was just Some Guy? Long before the superhero film’s cultural domination made tights and capes a guaranteed box office draw, the espionage thriller had been a steady mainstay in blockbuster cinema. The reason why wasn’t all that different: audiences love wish fulfillment, and what genre projects the sexy allure of dangerous thrills more than the spy flick? There’s a reason why every kid wants to be one when they grow up. From the slick, to the impeccably suave presentation of Agent 007’s outings, spies are just effortlessly and for that, they have Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock to thank.
When screenwriter Ernest Lehman began work on the collab that would inevitably become his goal was to make . It’s by happenstance that in their attempt to deconstruct the spy films of the ‘30s and ‘40s (some made by Hitchcock early in his career), they laid the foundation for what the genre would become. Even with its larger-than-life absurdity and borderline parodic tone, the movie still exists as an earnest reaffirmation of the cinematic spy’s monomyth.
It’s impossible to discuss lasting impact without talking about the irreplaceable Cary Grant. No stranger to working with Hitchcock, Grant’s immaculate comedic and dramatic range is tested here, as the film’s central case of mistaken identity takes quick-witted advertisement agent Roger Thornhill and drops him in the middle of an adventure so bombastic it would feel at home in an Ian Fleming novel. At.
