Character Analysis
If you know Don Draper, you know Roger Thornhill: the impeccably dressed, witty, charming Mad Man with two ex-wives and a hypnotic effect on the ladies. He's got secretaries trailing him around and is in nonstop motion at his job in a busy ad agency. Within minutes of meeting him we know two things about him: he's comfortable with lying, and he's a bit of a lush. These two facts explain a lot of what's to come later in the movie.
Just Exaggerating…
Lying in advertising? How could you even think of such a thing?
Actually, back in Thornhill's day, it was a lot easier to get away with misrepresentation in advertising. Remember "healthful" cigarettes? Roger's in the business of selling lies…er, exaggerations. In the first bit of dialogue, Thornhill's in a hurry and has just snatched a cab by telling the intended rider that his secretary is a sick woman and he needs the cab for an emergency.
MAGGIE: Poor man.
THORNHILL: Poor man nothing. I made him a good Samaritan.
MAGGIE: He knew you were lying.
THORNHILL: In the world of advertising there is no such thing as a lie, Maggie. There's only the Expedient Exaggeration.
Because most people know Thornhill's penchant for bending the truth, everyone has trouble believing his fantastical stories about kidnapping and mistaken identity—even his attorney and his mother. He's constantly having to protest his innocence but having no takers.
Two-Martini Lunch
Thornhill's also something of a boozer: fun-loving, but not all that responsible. Just after meeting the ad man for the first time, we hear him announce that he'll soon have two cocktails. No one believes Thornhill when he insists, after his first ordeal at the Townsend estate, that he was kidnapped and forced to drink and drive against his will. This suggests that people know that Roger has a history of wild partying, even if he hasn't spent other nights in the drunk tank.
Translation: No one's ever had to force this guy to drink.
Mama's Boy
Lushness aside, Thornhill's got a special woman in his life. A "man of forty and ill-grown adolescent" in Raymond Bellour's description, Roger starts off as a man-child. He's way too close to his mother and can't seem to keep a marriage together, having been divorced twice already when North by Northwest begins. In the '50s, being divorced twice was like having multiple leaked sex tapes…or something like that. Thornhill's relationship with his critical, overbearing, infantilizing mother is played for laughs, but it hints that he's not quite ready for grownup women.
Take this bit of dialogue:
THORNHILL: (to his secretary) Soon as you get back to the office, call my mother. Tell her about the theater tickets for tonight. Dinner at Twenty-One, seven o'clock. I'll have had two martinis at the Oak Bar, so she needn't bother to sniff me.
Minutes later, Roger starts the plot rolling by trying to send Mummy a telegram because he realizes his secretary won't be able to reach her—she's playing bridge at a friend's new apartment, and there's no phone installed yet. (Landlines, remember?) Obviously, Thornhill knows a lot of details about how his Mum spends her day.
Now, maybe Roger is the best son ever—dinner and the theater with Mom—but the "sniff me" part is a little creepy. A little too close. After he's arrested for drunk driving, he makes his one permitted call to his mother. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but you'd think a forty-ish ad exec might have a few other people he could call. He brings her along on his visit to the Townsend estate to prove his innocence to her, and she goes with him to the hotel in search of the elusive George Kaplan. She is totally not buying his story.
MRS. THORNHILL: Roger, just pay the two dollars!
Some of the things Roger says implies that he's even financially supporting her.
MRS. THORNHILL: Sometimes I wonder why I stand for your impertinences.
THORNHILL: You wouldn't have to if you could learn to cheat at bridge.
And after he runs into his would-be killers in the elevator and dashes out to the street, she calls after him:
MRS. THORNHILL: Roger—will you be home for dinner?
Seems like Mummy lives with her boy.
Hamm on Wry
Sorry, we couldn't resist.
Cary Grant was known as a great comic actor as well as a dramatic one, and he infuses Thornhill's character with a dry sense of humor; a lot funnier than say, Don Draper, in our opinion. He's always got the witty retort or funny romantic line. And considering his life's in peril for most of the film, that's quite an accomplishment. His humor probably saves his life when he makes a crazy scene at the auction so that he'll get arrested. He even jokes with Eve while they're clambering around on Mount Rushmore with killers on their tail.
Hitchcock enjoyed injecting humor into suspense and danger, and he knew that Cary Grant could pull it off. Thornhill's humor gives us some comic relief when the suspense just gets to be a bit much.
Which…is always.
Peter Pan Grows Up
Over the course of the film, Thornhill grows up. He realizes he's getting no help from anyone in figuring out this George Kaplan thing, so he's forced to find out the truth for himself. In the process, he becomes brave and resourceful, putting his life on the line for the woman he's falling in love with. He outgrows his frat boy lifestyle as well as his mommy issues and his womanizing ways. When he agrees to the Professor's request to help Eve by playing Kaplan, Thornhill finally looks out for something else beside himself.
It takes him a while to get there, though. His relationship with Eve starts as more of the same, all flirting and pretense. He's ready to jump her five minutes after meeting her.
EVE: I'm a big girl.
THORNHILL: Yeah, in all the right places, too.
[…]
THORNHILL: I'd invite you to my bedroom if I had a bedroom…
But there's something about Eve's honesty and directness that intrigues him. Even after he thinks she's betrayed him to Vandamm, he's still interested, and by the end of the film he's standing up to the Professor on her behalf:
THORNHILL: If you fellows can't lick the Vandamms of this world without asking girls like her to bed down with them and fly away with them and probably never come back, perhaps you ought to start learning how to lose a few Cold Wars.
Eve is Thornhill's love interest, but also his partner in adventure, not just along for the ride. The double agent (Eve) and sometime spy (Thornhill) are compatible not just because they're both total babes, but also because they're able to keep up with one another.
They're also connected by curiosity, and if there's one thing that makes us admire Thornhill from the first, even when he's immature, it's this very quality. We sense his determination to find things out, to get answers about his situation. Sure, he's already on the run, a fugitive from justice, and so it's not like he has a whole lot of other options. He can't just remain in New York and keep his job or move to California for a change of scene.
Thornhill has to figure out who's after him and why, then. But a lesser protagonist might not be so willing to change, to assume new roles and real responsibilities, all while keeping his signature grey suit impeccable and his razor-sharp wit intact.
Oh, and did we mention he's a hottie?
Roger Thornhill's Timeline