A Madison Avenue advertising executive, Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant), is mistaken for a government agent named George Kaplan. He is seized by two enemy agents at New York City?s Plaza Hotel and taken to the house of Lester Townsend. There he is interrogated by a man Thornhill assumes to be Townsend, but who is really Phillip Vandamm (James Mason). Vandamm becomes frustrated when Thornhill repeatedly denies he is Kaplan and orders his agents to get rid of him.