Editing North by Northwest (section)

== Plot ==
A waiter pages George Kaplan at the [[Oak Room (Plaza Hotel)|Oak Room restaurant]] at the [[Plaza Hotel]] in New York City at the request of two well-dressed men. As advertising executive Roger Thornhill summons the same waiter, he is mistaken for Kaplan, kidnapped by the pair, and brought to the estate of Lester Townsend in [[Glen Cove, New York|Glen Cove]]. Townsend interrogates Thornhill and subsequently arranges to kill him in a staged [[drunk driving]] crash; Thornhill survives, but fails to convince the police or his mother of what happened. Returning to the estate, Thornhill learns that Townsend is a [[United Nations]] diplomat.

Thornhill and his mother sneak into Kaplan's empty room at the Plaza, where the thugs have followed him. Thornhill heads to the U.N. [[United Nations General Assembly Building|General Assembly Building]] to meet Townsend, who turns out to be a completely different man. As he asks him about the man impersonating him, one of the gang's thugs throws a knife into Townsend's back. Townsend collapses in Thornhill's arms, and Thornhill is photographed grabbing at the knife, giving the appearance that he is the murderer. Thornhill flees, attempting to find the real Kaplan.

The "United States Intelligence Agency" realizes that Thornhill has been mistaken for Kaplan, a non-existent agent they created as a decoy to distract their quarries, but its chief, "the Professor", decides against rescuing him for fear of compromising their operation.

Thornhill sneaks aboard the luxurious ''[[20th Century Limited]]'' train to Chicago without a ticket, where he meets Eve Kendall, who hides him from the police in her stateroom's upper berth. The two establish a relationship—on Kendall's part because she is secretly working with the espionageurs—and she helps him elude a police dragnet. She then tells Thornhill that she has arranged a meeting with Kaplan at a rural bus stop in [[Indiana]]. When Thornhill arrives there, he is attacked by a [[Aerial application|crop duster]] armed with a machine gun. After being flushed from cover in a cornfield, he attempts to halt a passing [[tanker truck]]; the airplane crashes into it and both explode. In the ensuing confusion he steals a bystander's pickup truck. At Kaplan's hotel in Chicago, Thornhill learns that Kaplan had checked out before the time when Kendall claimed to have spoken with him. He goes to her room and confronts her, but she eludes him.

[[File:North by Northwest movie trailer screenshot (3).jpg|thumb|Roger Thornhill, Eve Kendall, and Phillip Vandamm at the Mount Rushmore visitor center]]

Thornhill tracks Kendall to an art auction, where the Townsend-impersonator—Phillip Vandamm, the ringleader of the group—is purchasing a small primitive statue. Vandamm instructs his henchmen to deal with Thornhill. Thornhill disrupts the auction until police are called to remove him. He confesses to them that he is the fugitive murderer, but the Professor intervenes. At the airport, he tells Thornhill that Kaplan was fictitious and that Eve Kendall is their real agent. Vandamm lives above [[Mount Rushmore]], and the agency thinks he will be leaving the country by plane from there. Thornhill agrees to help maintain Kendall's cover.

At the Mount Rushmore visitor center, now playing the role of Kaplan at the USAI's request, Thornhill negotiates for Vandamm's turnover of Kendall to be arrested. Kendall shoots Thornhill with blanks and flees. Afterward, the Professor arranges for Thornhill and Kendall to meet; Thornhill learns that Kendall is to depart on the plane with Vandamm and his right-hand man Leonard. He tries to dissuade her from going, but is knocked unconscious by the Professor's driver and locked in a hospital room.

Thornhill escapes and goes to Vandamm's home to rescue Kendall, where he overhears that the sculpture holds [[Microform#Microfilm|microfilm]] and that Leonard has discovered the blanks in Kendall's gun. Vandamm indicates that he will dispose of Kendall by throwing her from the plane; Thornhill manages to warn her with a surreptitious note. Vandamm, Leonard, and Kendall head for the plane. Thornhill is momentarily held at gunpoint by the housekeeper until he realizes she is holding Kendall's gun. As Vandamm boards, Kendall takes the sculpture and runs to the pursuing Thornhill, and they flee to the top of Mount Rushmore. As they climb down, they are pursued by Vandamm's men. A park ranger fatally shoots Leonard, and Vandamm is taken into custody by the Professor.

As Kendall hangs on by her fingertips, Thornhill reaches down to pull her up. She is next seen—as Mrs. Thornhill—being pulled into an upper berth on a train, which suggestively enters a tunnel.