That was an excellent one.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's a shame Paul Newman got this role. By this time, what talent he had as the next Brando was ruined by fame. He played himself largely, egocentric, bored, half drunk. This was who he was in real life by then. It is also why he needed the thrill driving he was doing so avidly. He had hit the top and it wasn't enough.The script was fine, the supporting cast was fine and it could've been a very good film for its time. Done in a Hitchcockian manner, the mystery takes you along in spite of the main star's glib portrayal of a washed up author who gets the Nobel prize whether he wants it or not. Newman acts like he's poking fun at the other actors working hard to keep the film afloat. Another example of too much too soon. These type of decisions (putting big stars in films to get rewards at the bank) would be the reasons the old Hollywood died, however, the new Hollywood which is run by bankers does the same thing yet. Largely, they take for granted the stupidity of the average film goer and they are correct. People go to the movies and see awful films as well because like Newman, they are bored.

Stockholm never looked lovelier than in this film. Seldom have I seen a city made to look as beautiful and colorful as they managed to do here. While introducing farcical elements to replace the heavy romance in the original, director Mark Robson and screenwriter Ernest Lehman virtually remake Alfred Hitchcock's (and Lehman's) "North By Northwest" in a way that continually pokes fun at itself.Paul Newman stars as effete and boozing American writer Andrew Craig, who somehow managed to win a Nobel Prize for Literature despite not having written anything but cheap detective novels for years. Arriving in Stockholm to attend the ceremony, he is shepherded during his stay by government representative Inger Andersson (the lovely Elke Sommer). He meets several other prize recipients, each of whom has some dysfunctional relationship with either a fellow prize winner or someone else close. Then there is one particular prize winner, Dr. Max Stratman (Edward G. Robinson), who is the subject of a sinister Cold-War plot....Newman lounges through most of the film affecting a now-it's-there, now-it's-not effete speaking voice that contrasts sharply with his pretensions to being a lady killer. Being a detective-story writer, he quickly senses from some subtle facts that something is amiss with Dr. Stratman and his perky niece (Diane Baker). He spends the remainder of the film gallivanting around Stockholm solving the mystery while contending with assorted colorful locals.Anyway, that's the set-up. There are gaping plot holes (at one point, Craig receives a mysterious and crucial phone call from someone for no apparent reason) and jokey scenes with no purpose (Lehman sends up a similar scene in "North By Northwest" by having Craig interrupt a Nudist Convention in order to escape bumbling killers). More so than usual in these types of films, the crooks seem to linger around practically inviting the hero to figure things out in time. The chief hired killer is a dead ringer for Martin Landau, who must have been unavailable, while Leo G. Carroll reprises his role as an authority figure to eliminate all confusion about what is going on. The real problem with the script is that it can't make up its mind to be a complete farce, so one minute Newman is stumbling around rather pathetically, the next he is outwitting professional killers on a cargo ship a la James Bond. As a mystery, the film is rather silly, and as a farce it pulls its punches, so those are not the reasons to see it.But Stockholm is glorious! There is an irreverent live-and-let-live attitude throughout that plays on the stereotype that anything goes in hip Sweden, and Elke is the embodiment of that wistful notion. Newman gets off occasional one-liners of the type that Sean Connery did much better in the following year's "Goldfinger" but are amusing in their own right. Worth catching for a trip to a fabulous place that never really existed.

An enjoyable comic thriller filled with familiar incidents. If, in "North by Northwest," Cary Grant is pursued in an open field by an airplane, here Paul Newman is chased back and forth by a murderous car on a long bridge. If, in the first, Grant must make himself enough of an annoyance in an auction to be rescued by the cops, here Newman must do the same at a meeting of nudists in a gymnasium. It's not too surprising since both films were written by the same man, Ernest Lehman. You can REPEAT yourself but you can't PLAGIARIZE yourself. Lehman even throws in an image from a Hitchcock number he had nothing to do with. In "Saboteur", the heavy falls from the Statue of Liberty. Here he falls from a rooftop in Stockholm and is impaled on the sword of a huge statue below. And the substitution of the evil Robinson for the good Robinson is from Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent."Newman is a former literary star, invited to Stockholm to accept a Nobel Prize, who has lost his willingness to try and now devotes himself to writing detective novels under a nom de plume and to drinking martini after martini. As far as the alcoholism goes, though, he remarks near the beginning, "Ewww. This is my third martini and I haven't even had breakfast yet," so he retains his amateur standing.Anyway, the booze business is dropped once he's swept up into a Cold War plot to substitute a faux scientist, a twin of Edward G. Robinson, who is a benign American scientist. At the awards ceremony, the Soviet ringer plans to make a speech condemning free enterprise, capitalism, the exploitation of the working class, the decadence of the West, miniskirts, shaved legs, hair mousse for men, electronic fussball, and Yosemite Sam. The genuine Robinson has been kidnapped and the sinister Robinson has taken his place. The difference between the two is nicely done -- mostly a matter of having the good Eddie smiling weakly and the bad Eddie scowling and sounding like Little Caesar in retirement. Make up has added darker, thicker eyebrows to the evildoer.It is Newman's self-appointed job to unravel the plot and restore the correct Robinson to his justified place on the dais at the ceremony. He will be helped by his toothsome chaperone, Elke Sommer, whom he squeezes so vigorously at one point that she complains he is breaking her "rips", something any normal man would enjoy doing.The inquiry takes Newman through myriad Swedish settings, from grand parties at the royal palace, through filthy rusting ships, to hotels in which he must run through the corridors wearing only a towel around his waste -- everybody's favorite nightmare.The direction by Mark Robson is professional and so are the performances. Paul Newman is a bit of a surprise. He's never been particularly good outside of dramas but he's quite effective here. Watch him try to explain to the skeptical Stockholm police that he has discovered the body of a murder victim and add that the body has now disappeared. Oh, the body has disappeared? Newman looks momentarily taken aback as he realizes how ludicrous this sounds, hesitates, then plunges determinedly ahead -- "Well . . . yes!" Cary Grant would have walked away with this part but Newman carries the ball well.The whole thing is a wanton ripoff of Hitchcock but it's so amiable and so funny in its characters, situations, and wisecracks, that it doesn't really matter. You'll probably enjoy it.

I absolutely enjoyed this 2+ hour-long movie, and the fact that, as others have mentioned, it's inspired by Hitchcock doesn't change anything.I liked Newman's character. A man who is more interested in women and drink rather than the Nobel Prize, who has a devil-may-care attitude towards everything, decides to endanger his own life when he realizes his colleague is in trouble. Maybe he does it partially because he is bored and partially because he has been writing detective stories for the past few years, but it is interesting to watch his behavior anyway.Although the plot is pretty simple, there is something that gets you hooked from the very beginning and doesn't let you go until the very last phrase. The film is very interesting, and the supporting characters play a significant role here.