Three years before 007 made his big-screen debut in Dr. No, Alfred Hitchcock laid the groundwork by making a movie filled with James Bond DNA: North by Northwest. Cary Grant stars as an advertising executive on the run after a case of mistaken identity. He is pursued by foreign spies and falls for a mysterious woman with unclear motives. The bright and exciting action-thriller is known for iconic sequences in which Grant, as Roger Thornhill, is chased by a crop duster and battles the film’s antagonists atop Mount Rushmore. One of many Hitchcock and Grant collaborations, North by Northwest was a massive hit that clearly influenced what was to come in the case of popcorn entertainment and Britain’s greatest super spy.
Author Ian Flemming had been penning James Bond books since 1953, but Hitchcock, who had been in the film business since the early 1920s, wanted a hit after Vertigo was met with critical confusion in 1958. The director decided to make something light, fun and jam-packed with set pieces that he always wanted to include but never had the right story to do so. Producers were eager to turn Fleming's Bond books into movies (his first book, Casino Royale had already served as the basis for a one-hour TV program in 1954), but finding the right cast, getting funding, and choosing the right novel to adapt (they wanted to start with Thunderball), proved difficult. Action movies, particularly Hitchcock’s previous and unmade projects, had contained similar themes and styles, but not to such a heightened degree as seen here.
Hitchcock’s North by Northwest became a prototype for James Bond movies to come, particularly the inaugural Sean Connery installments. The central character in the 1959 thriller is a suave suit-wearing British man who is irresistible to women. He is charming and quick-witted. The girl he pursues, Eve Kendall, played by Eva Marie Saint, is overly flirtatious but is hiding her loyalties, which is a staple trait of nearly all Bond girls. The villains are also classy foreign agents, chasing a MacGuffin, which in this case, is valuable microfilm. When all of these ingredients are put together, along with some spectacle like a few good chase and fight sequences, the result is a spy thriller that could easily swap Connery and Roger Moore's version of Bond in favor of Grant’s Roger Thornhill.
The second James Bond movie, 1963's From Russia With Love, actually takes direct inspiration from North by Northwest with its helicopter chase modeled after the latter's crop duster sequence, as well as its extensive train sequence. A lot of Hitchcock’s movie also takes place on a train, and the master of suspense knows how to draw intensity out of such confined scenes. The biggest link between North by Northwest and the James Bond franchise, though, is Cary Grant. Because of his performance in Hitchcock's film, Grant was actually offered the 007 role before other actors, like Connery, who appeared in seven Bond movies. But a deal was not struck, since the star only wished to appear in one installment as opposed to multiple sequels.
Ultimately, it’s hard to imagine James Bond movies existing without North by Northwest. While it’s likely they would have been produced sometime in the 1960s regardless, it was this 1959 spy thriller that proved this type of movie could work and be an immense hit. Had it not happened, early Bond movies may have looked and felt different or taken far longer to try and find their tone and style. Alfred Hitchcock followed up North by Northwest with his most iconic and intimate project, Psycho, but it was his over-the-top spy passion project that may just have had the biggest influence in cinema.