As a part of their continuing series of classic movies on Thursdays, tonight the Clearview in Chelsea will be showing Alfred Hitchcock's brilliant North by Northwest (1959). Tickets only cost $5.50 (what a steal for a movie in Manhattan!) and the live pre-show event starts promptly at 7 pm.

To get geared up, we bring you below a bit from the book-long conversation between French New Wave director and critic, François Truffaut and the Fat Man himself, as they discuss Hitch's twisting plots so nicely evident in NXNW.

F.T.: [...] North by Northwest is the picture that epitomizes the whole of your work in America. It's always difficult to sum up all the ups and downs in stories in a few words, but this one is almost impossible.

A. H.: That brings up an amusing sidelight of the shooting. You may remember that during the first part all sorts of things happen to the hero with such bewildering rapidity that he doesn't know what it's all about. Anyway, Cary Grant came up to me and said, "It's a terrible script. We've done a third of the picture and I still can't make head or tail of it."

F.T.: He felt the story too confusing?

A.H.: Yes, but without realizing it he was using a line of his own dialogue.

Excerpt from Hitchcock/Truffaut: The definitive study of Alfred Hitchcock by François Truffaut, (Simon and Schuster, 1983). Clearview's Chelsea is located at 260 W. 23rd St between Seventh and Eighth Ave.