... the construction of gendered identity in the fifties was surprising, for it exactly reversed the focus of his previous film North by Northwest. The lead character of North by Northwest, Roger Thornhill, overcomes his reliance on his mother to take his "proper- role as a masculine entity and perform his ... and moral in the world. When Norman took that knife to Marion, he was slashing away at everything that had gone before, at expectations of heroes and bad guys, at every cliché of what was supposed to happen, at the polite fantasy of good triumphing over evil ... lately familiar Hitch...

• Word Count: 2510
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate