While having lunch at the Plaza Hotel, advertising executive Roger O. Thornhill (Cary Grant) has the bad luck to stand up just as a "George Kaplan" is being paged. From this point on, Thornhill's life is turned upsode down. He is abducted by three mysterious men and whisked away to a palatial home of enemy spy Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Denying that his name is Kaplan, Thornhill is at a complete loss when Vandamm begins grilling him for information. Finally, Thornhill is drugged, tossed into a car and sent careening down a treacheras mountain road.