Description
Considered by many to be director Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest achievement, Leonard Maltin gives Vertigo four stars, hailing it as “A genuinely great motion picture.” Set among San Francisco’s renown landmarks, James Stewart is brilliant as Scottie Ferguson, an acrophobic detective hired to shadow a friend’s suicidal wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak). After he saves her from drowning in the bay, Scottie’s interest shifts from business to fascination with the icy, alluring blonde. When he finds another woman remarkably like his lost love, the now obsessed detective must unravel the secrets of the past to find the key to his future.Amazon.com essential video
Although it wasn’t a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock’s greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the most recent survey. (Universal Pictures’ spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall (“fall” is indeed the operative word) in love and…well, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, Vertigo is as lovely as it is haunting. –Jim Emerson
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February 9th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Skip this edited or censored disc. I remember with excitement the original with James Stewart and Kim Novak. But, according to the “product details” provided by Amazon, Stewart and Novak are missing from this third “special” version. My advice is to wait for the fourth dip into the Hitchcock canon, when hopefully Stewart and Novak will be restored to their starring roles.
Rating: 1 / 5
Vertigo
February 9th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
Yikes!! What a supreme disappointment this was!!
Though I’m a great fan of all things Hitchcockian, I’m afraid Sir Alfred Hitchcock has steadily gone down hill since the wonderful “The Manxman.”
What was Sir Alfred Hitchcock thinking when he made this dreck??!!
Additionally, I would also have appreciated a director’s commentary with this DVD. Maybe it would have answered so many lingering questions I have – such as: “What is with that foggy green light in that one scene?” I have heard Hitch doesn’t believe in electronically recording his thoughts in such a commentary, but maybe if we pester him he will come around!!
Always the optimist, I hope his next film is better!! Something more along the lines of “Easy Virtue” or “The Pleasure Garden.”
Thanks for reading this!!
Rating: 1 / 5
Vertigo
February 9th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Why is this interminable film so highly regarded?
We do a lot of driving around. We climb lots of staircases that are filmed from weird angles. We get some classic shots of San Francisco. We get a story line that’s implausible but which is gussied up to respectability by the use of terms such as “obsessional”.
We learn in the DVD bonus material that Hitchcock actually used a metronome to pace Kim Novak’s final traipse up those wooden stairs from which she takes her biiiiiiig step.
I reckon Hitchcock used the metronome throughout the movie and set to its slowest possible speed. Slow pace = suspense. Doesn’t it?
Yeh, I must be really thick.
Rating: 1 / 5
Vertigo
February 9th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Watching the films of Alfred Hitchcock reminds one of the fairy tale of Goldilocks And The Three Bears. Not so much in the actual filmic nature of the art, but in the critical reception accorded the films. As example, some of the films that are labeled masterpieces, like Psycho or The Birds, are just right in their assessment. Other films that are critically neglected are, in fact, among Hitchcock’s better films, such as Rope and Frenzy. Then there are the films that are hailed as masterpieces, but which are profound disappointments. If they are not outright bad films, they certainly are only marginally solid films, and achieve their solidity mainly through technical accomplishments. In this category I would place Rear Window and Vertigo.
It’s not that Vertigo is an awful film, for technically it’s very well made- especially considering that era, but the flaccid and absurd screenplay simply does not hold up a half century on. Add to that the fact that the film is glacially paced, and you have a fairly boring film; one that even Jimmy Stewart’s crotchety presence can barely enliven. However, I have long lauded films that do not place plot ahead of character development, so one might ask why am I asking for a better plot and more briskly paced film? Well, simply put, all of the characters are cardboard cutouts, and plot details are easier to resolve than character depth. If one is going to give mere archetypes (and that’s being generous, the characters are really more stereotypes than archetypes) then the plot better zing and have a good payoff. This one does not. Part of the problem with the screenplay is the utter dependence for the propulsion of the plot upon the Neolithic psychiatric pseudoscience of the era, which too many of Hitchcock’s films are dependent upon, and which leave most of his films in very shallow waters intellectually. This lack of intellectual and emotional depth is part of the reason he is rightly looked down upon when compared to greater masters of film, such as Stanley Kubrick, Orson Welles, Federico Fellini, Werner Herzog, Ingmar Bergman, or Martin Scorsese.
A film like this points out the fact that Hitchcock not only was not a `deep’ director, but could not have been, for by sacrificing what he did best- manipulation, suspense, and twists of plot, all he did was sacrifice what he did best. He had no Bergmanian depths to plumb. Is it really believable that Scotty would become a deaf-mute for a year over his supposed guilt in `Madeline’s’ suicide? Stewart projects far too much sanity in this role, and as a filmic persona. When Midge is fussing over him he does not look remotely catatonic, merely sleepy. There were plenty of other downright bad moments in the film, of course, such as where Scottie is standing on a chair, looks out Midge’s window, and faints gently into her arms. Now, he dwarfs her in size, and falling from several feet, he would not waft into her arms, but thud, and probably hurt both of them. This scene is set up only to show that Midge will always be there for Scottie, despite whatever convolutions their relationship has had. But, we get this from every moment they are together. There are many, many other screenplay moments that fail, and this surprises, for the co-screenwriters, Samuel Taylor and Alec Coppel, based the film upon the novel D’Entre Les Morts, by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who also wrote the story for Henri-Georges Clouzot’s great thriller Diabolique, a tale that Hitchcock tried to get the rights to, but failed. Given Diabolique’s greatness one can only assume that the screnwriters, in concert with Hitchcock, ruined what was probably a great story.
If the script and direction is weak, however, the best parts of the film are the score, provided by Bernard Herrmann, and the camera work. The music directs the viewer, but does not lead nor overwhelm, save for the trite and sappy love scenes, which are bad all around. Even better than the film’s soundtrack is the cinematography by Hitchcock’s long time cinematographer Robert Burks. The palette is lush with reds, greens, and browns, as the shots of the sequoias, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the art museum are gorgeous, making the most of the now outdated Technicolor technology. There is also a brief scene which features Ellen Corby, who would later go on to fame as the crotchety grandmother in the television series The Waltons, that is humorous. For those interested in Hitchcock’s cameo, it comes about eleven minutes into the film, in a throwaway shot designed only for the cameo, where we see him crossing a street before we get to the interior of Gavin Elster’s office.
Yet, even more so than the implausibilities, bad screenplay, and sexism, that damn the film is the fact that Vertigo is simply dull. Add that to a lead character who is a creep with problems, its love story pathetic, and its `mystery’ being rather pallid and given away too soon, and the claim that Vertigo is one of Hitchcock’s most overrated films is a good one. At best, it is merely a mediocre film. And, as Goldilocks might claim, that sort of assessment is `just right.’
Rating: 3 / 5
Vertigo
February 9th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
I have recently been trying to watch as many of the AFI Top 100 movies of all time since I missed most of them when they came out (ie. I wasn’t born yet). I have been very pleased with all the movies I have seen so far (Citizen Kane, On the Waterfront, The Maltese Falcon, Chinatown, etc.). I decided to get one of the highly rated Hitchcock films and I chose Vertigo as my first foray into the Hitchcock oeuvre. Words can not describe how dissappointed I was after viewing this film. It was bad on almost all levels. The acting by Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak was atrocious. The love story around them was one of the most unbelievable love stories I have seen since Pauly Shore and Carla Gugino in SON IN LAW. It was so wooden and staged and never once did I buy into it. I think it is very telling that this movie was both a box-office and critical bomb when it was released. It only became the “masterpiece” that it is regarded today because of how it personally relates to Hitch’s own obsessions. Just because it is a highly personal film, does not mean it is any good. I think people tend to overlook how incredibly horrible this movie is and just give it the title of masterpiece based on what they know of Hitchcock’s personal life. Also, I don’t mind slow paced films, but this film practically crawled. It pretty much put me to sleep. I always thought thrillers were supposed to keep you on the edge of your seat. I had to strain to stay awake at the end, especially after Hitchcock gave away the ending with 50 minutes to go!! Where is the suspense in it?? I didn’t get a chance to see this movie when it was first released so I do not know how vivid the colors of the movie were back then, but this “restored version” of the film is laughable. It looks like Ted Turner got ahold of a black and white film and did some of his colorization “magic” on it. Completely unnatural looking. I am now afraid to pick up another one of the Hitchcock films in the AFI Top 100 because of this movie. I have seen parts of Psycho and know that it is a far superior thriller, but Vertigo has made me very leery of wasting my time with any more Hitchcock “masterpieces”. Completely over rated.
Rating: 1 / 5
Vertigo