I am a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan. This is a horizontal Belgian poster for my all-time favourite Hitchcock movie. North by Northwest features the famous crop duster suspense sequence, a memorable climax on the face of Mount Rushmore, and some great chemistry between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint. 

Grant plays a slick New York adman, which also resonates for me given my previous life as an advertising agency exec (although I would never claim to have been in the same league of coolness as him). North by Northwest has become the template for so many thriller/chase movies (not least the James Bond films), but it still feels fresh and it moves at a clip from set-piece to set-piece. 

This horizontal Belgian poster features the stars and also manages to combine the film’s two most famous sequences. Unfortunately, the top left corner suffered some water damage when I relocated from Sri Lanka to Japan about 15 years ago  (lousy shipping company – another lesson learned the hard way). I got insurance cover which paid for the value of the poster at the time, but I do not know of any way to repair it sadly. It is a pity, as it certainly spoils what was otherwise a perfect condition poster, but at least it did not damage the image itself. (The large white space area at the top is I believe where cinemas would print/write the show times). If anyone knows how to repair water damage marks like this, I would love to hear from you!

More recently, I also picked up this French poster. Curiously, this is a reproduction “grande” size poster from the 1970s, of a poster which was only produced in a “moyenne” size for the original release. If I can ever track down an original size for a reasonable price (cheapest I have seen is €400) I will buy to frame.

Plus, here is another take on the poster design, this from a Spanish re-release in the 70s. This is shown here on a ‘gaia’ (guide) that would have been sent to cinemas along with the promotional materials to display.