Warner has announced they will be releasing a 50th anniversary edition of the Alfred Hitchcock classic NORTH BY NORTHWEST, on DVD and Blu-ray, on Nov 3rd, 2009.

Cary Grant (as the ultimate man-on-the-run in his fourth Hitchcock teaming) gives a superlative performance while Eva Marie Saint (perfect Hitchcock heroine Eve Kendall) is at her sultry and sexy best in this heart-pounding thriller. Grant plays Manhattan adman Roger Thornhill, who is at once plunged into the world of spies and counterspies, abducted, framed for murder, chased, and (in the signature set-piece) crop-dusted. At the films’ end, he hangs on for dear life from the facial features of Mount Rushmore’s Presidents where he ultimately rescues Miss Saint.

Starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint, James Mason, co-starring Jessie Royce Landis, Leo G. Carroll and Martin Landau, the stylish, action-packed espionage caper was written by Ernest Lehman, with music by Bernard Herrmann. Nominated for three Academy Awards® including Best Writing, Film Editing and Art Direction, the film was lauded as #4 on AFI’s ”100 Years…100 Thrills” and selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Not only is NBNW one of my fav Hitchcock films, I think it is one of the best films ever. Warner generally does a nice job with these, no cheap transfers, so I am thinking we will get a very nice restoration job and not simply a re-hashing of an print.

New Special Features:

Documentary: The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style
Documentary: North by Northwest: One for the Ages

Additional Special Features:
Screenwriter commentary
Music only track
CaryGrant: A Class Apart [2003 TCM Documentary]
Destination Hitchcock: The Making of North by Northwest hosted by Eva Marie Saint
Photo gallery
Trailer gallery

The Blu-ray will also come with a 44 page book featuring ” photos, film facts and insider information.”

The DVD release will retail at $24.98, while the Blu-ray will be $34.99.