North by Northwest

Manhattan advertising executive Roger Thornhill is already having a hectic day with a jam-packed schedule for its remainder. That schedule takes a turn when he is detained during a business lunch by two strange men who kidnap him. Unsure why anyone would want to kidnap him, he discovers that someone named Lester Townsend believes him to be someone named George Kaplan.Townsend wants information from Kaplan, but is prepared to kill Kaplan with or without that information, Kaplan's death meant to look like an accident or suicide. Thornhill eventually escapes from his captors and connects with the authorities, but they don't believe his story; then he must go on the run as he becomes implicated in a murder connected to his being Kaplan, so he must find out what's going on with whatever information he has, most of it gleaned during his captivity: he can identify Townsend, his wife, their housekeeper, three of Townsend's thugs, Townsend's address where he was being held, and Kaplan's recent whereabouts and future movements in what seems to be some tour of the United States, those next two locations being Chicago, Illinois and Rapid City, South Dakota. In his travels in evading both Townsend's people and the authorities, Thornhill gets some willing assistance from a beautiful young blonde woman he meets, industrial designer Eve Kendall, whose help is despite she knowing who he is from the newspaper reports of him being wanted for murder. They eventually fall for each other. She, however, may have some undisclosed ulterior motive for helping him. All the while, Kaplan's people have been and are continuing to watch the proceedings from the sidelines, what they deciding to do largely to protect "Kaplan" from being discovered by "Townsend".