Good 50's Films: Vertigo

1958 Mystery
From Paramount Pictures
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring
James Stewart
Kim Novak
Barbara Bel Geddes
Tom Helmore
Henry Jones

Boy, the word of mouth this film has generated over the years has been widespread.  In some circles it has been hailed as the best American film ever made and yet others say the plot is too preposterous for contemplation.  Honestly, it does have its head-scratcher moments but I have learned to overlook them and see what I feel is a damned good film.  It more than deserves its inclusion in our good 50's films section.  I cannot, however, find a way to call it the best American film ever made.  Besides, everyone knows that's Brokeback Mountain.

Vertigo is usually referred to as Hitchcock's masterpiece and I am okay with that one.  I don't ever think he made a film so psychologically gripping (and yet most of his films had that component) and it is without question the most confessional of all his films.  In full glory are his renowned rapture with female objectification, his obsession with blondes, his voyeuristic nature and the kinky fantasies he has had with some of his leading ladies.  Here is a tale of obsession and voyeurism in a psychological, hypnotic and macabre love story like none Hitchcock ever told.

Vertigo was not at all popular when it was released. 

Stewart plays Scottie Ferguson, a newly-retired detective who suffers from acrophobia and as a result vertigo.  An old college chum asks him to trail his wife Madeleine (Novak) whom he says is in some sort of danger because she is possessed by the spirit of a mysterious 18th century aristocrat, whom Madeleine claims is her great-grandmother.  Scottie is at first reluctant to do work of any sort but agrees once he is coaxed into just gazing upon Madeleine.  He has no idea how her extraordinary blonde beauty will suck the air out his life.

He trails her to a number of locations around San Francisco, including a museum where she sits alone and is transfixed on a painting of that 18th century woman.  Later when Madeleine jumps into San Francisco Bay, Scottie saves her.  He takes her to his apartment, dries her out, warms her up and declares his love.  But an attack of acrophobia and vertigo keeps Scottie from saving her when she jumps from a bell tower at a local mission.

Scottie is inconsolable at losing Madeleine.  His acute melancholia finds him in residence at a sanitarium where he is unable to be anything other than comatose.  Even his galpal, Midge (Bel Geddes), is deeply concerned and unable to get him to respond.

Scottie does recover (without any transitional scenes... one scene he's out of it and the next recovered) and one day on the street he sees a redhead, Judy Barton, who is the spitting image of Madeleine.  In the true-to-life Hitchcockian way, Scottie molds Judy into Madeleine.  He buys clothes for her that Madelyn wore and has her bleach her hair blonde and change her hairstyle.  He knows Judy is earthier and more outgoing than Madeleine but he chooses to ignore it.  

SPOILER ALERT next two paragraphs...  

Once Judy's physical transformation is complete, Scottie falls head over heels in love again.  Judy resists some, feeling she's not loved for herself but the fact is she is in love with him as well.  Audiences at this point aren't sure what's going on or where it will take them.  But then Judy decides to leave town because she's feeling guilty.  She writes Scottie a letter.  While doing so, her voice-over tells us that it was all a setup.  Scottie's friend hired Judy because she looked like his wife whom he planned to murder.  The friend picked Scottie because of his acrophobia and vertigo knowing Scottie would not be able to climb the stairs of the bell tower.  Madeleine and the wife were dressed alike and looked identical.  The man and his already dead wife are at the top of the tower.  When Madeleine gets to the top, the man pushes his wife out an opening and Scottie sees Madeleine fall and thinks she has killed herself. 

Now that we see what has happened and that the woman has always been Judy, we observe her tearing up the letter to Scottie because they love each other and she wants the relationship to go forward.  But as they're getting ready to go out one night, Judy mistakenly puts on a necklace that Scottie remembers Madeleine wearing which was a copy of one worn by the woman in the portrait.  He knows he's been duped.  Without telling her why, he takes Judy back to the bell tower saying that he wants to be free of something from his past.  He is now able to climb to the top, pulling Judy all the way.  As she is struggling with him and confessing to sins and declaring her love, they reach the top.  A nun comes out of the shadow, frightening Judy who falls to her death.   Hitchcock liked to say it was just his twist on the old formula of boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again.  Here he gets girl back and loses her a second time.

Stewart is as impressive as he has ever been in an unusual role for him as a lovesick fool enamored of a woman who doesn't really exist.  His eyes have perhaps never been as expressive as they are here for a role that required cynicism, obsession and mental illness.  I never could understand, however, why a retired man would wear a suit and tie constantly.

It is the fourth and final Hitchcock film to star Stewart who previously worked for the director on Rope (1948), Rear Window (1954) and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).  It may have been their last collaboration because when Vertigo bombed at the box office, Hitchcock blamed Stewart because he looked too old.  At 25 years older than his comely costar, he did look older, always making me wonder what did someone who looked like she did see in an old guy like that.  On the other hand, who hired the old guy?

Madeleine just could be Hitchcock's most irresistible heroine, partially because we can never quite get a fix on her.  She is mysterious, icy and a bit other-worldly and as a result I think the casting of Novak was genius.  She is, of course, stunning to look at, another trait that was paramount as Scottie needs to fall for her hook, line and sinker.

The role that is unquestionably the best of Novak's career almost wasn't hers.  Hitchcock's current blonde fixation, Vera Miles, was scheduled to perform the dual roles, but became pregnant, much to Hitchcock's ire.  While I have always had a thing for Miles, her beautiful but somewhat severe look and her general scrappiness was just not right for Madeleine.  

It's funny that this female lead character is arguably Hitchcock's favorite while he didn't care so much for the actress playing her.  He just simply never took to Novak and, blonde though she was (and tinged with purple), she never yanked his chain.  He was rarely pleased with her performance.  Novak could pull off some good acting when she worked for a director who worked with her.  That was never Hitchcock, never for anyone. When actors asked him what their motivation was for a scene, as she did, he was given to saying your paycheck is your motivation.

Never a particularly easy actress to work with, her scrapes with directors and leading men are legendary.  An early hassle here was over her costumes, particularly a gray suit that she wears early on and which is key to the story and aligned with the atmosphere Hitchcock wanted to achieve.  Most directors don't get involved in costumes on their films but women's costumes consumed a lot of the director's time on all his movies.  He was not to be trifled with and Novak lost her plea. 

For Paramount to get Novak away from her home studio of Columbia, there was a contractual stipulation that Stewart would star opposite her in Bell, Book and Candle to commence immediately after filming on Vertigo completed.  Both films would be released in 1958.  Interestingly, she played another other-worldly role, that of a witch, but the film is a comedy.  Novak would claim Stewart was her favorite leading man.  

Strictly a publicity shot (not in the film)

The preposterous nature of the story shows up now and again, particularly illuminated by the fact that Madeleine and Judy look like identical twins with a different hair color.  Scottie doesn't see this?  What is he, a nitwit?  Also a stretch is how closely he follows her in his car, time after time, and she never spotted him?  What is she, a nitwit?  In the final scene, back in the bell tower, are we really to believe that Scottie recovered from his acrophobia and vertigo?  Do the writers think I am a nitwit?

On the other hand, I have to presume that an old master like Hitchcock knew exactly what he was doing.  He wanted it all to be unsettling for viewers, even maddening.  We're not supposed to fully understand it.  He not only didn't want it all tidied up, he wanted folks to still be shaking their heads as they left the theater. 

Here's a trailer:

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