Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock’s best film?
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Welcome to our second Alfred Hitchcock movie review!
Following up our review of Rear Window, today we are talking about a film that has been cited as one of the defining works of Hitchcock’s career, Vertigo (1958)
Vertigo, shot in San Francisco, has a stunning cinematography, complex characters and a storyline that feels like a novel, versus some of Hitchcock’s movies that are based on plays. It has a super high rating on IMDB, an 8.3 at the time of this blog post.
Overview
Vertigo was actually a box office dud when it was first released in 1958. It was marred by mixed reviews and was considered a failure at the time, but today is considered one of Hitchcock’s best movies, and even temporarily replaced Citizen Kane as the best movie of all time.
Alfred Hitchock actually blamed James Stewart’s age for the failure, saying he thought it was because of his age difference with Kim Novak that made the movie fail. At the time of filming, Stewart was 50 years old which, according to the Hitchcock was too old to convincingly play then-25-year-old Kim Novak’s love interest.
(Not really sure why Hitchcock picked this reason to blame for the films performance as Stewart was 46 during during the filming of Rear Window and his love interest Grace Kelly was 25)
James Stewart was 50 at the time of filming Vertigo while Kim Novak at age 25
James Stewart was 46 during the filming of Rear Window while Grace Kelly was 25
Vertigo’s storyline was based on a french novel
The storyline was based on a 1954 french novel “the living and the dead” which was a psychological mystery novel set in Paris.
Alfred Hitchcock decided to film in San Francisco instead of Paris because he thought it would be a more interesting setting.
We see a shot of San Francisco from Midge’s apartment
Kim Novak next to the Golden Gate Bridge
San Francisco’s infamously steep streets and hilly landscape were perfect backdrop for the film’s themes. It’s a city with extreme physical highs and lows, awful for anyone with acrophobia which is a fancy term for someone with vertigo, which is a fancy term for someone afraid of heights.
Ac·ro·pho·bi·a extreme or irrational fear of heights.
Vertigo summary
First, we have an introduction to Jimmy Stewart’s character, and we see right in the beginning the tragic event that leads to his vertigo.
The tragic accident that results in Johnny’s vertigo
It’s such a traumatic event, that it’s not just a mild case of vertigo, but he can even get triggered stepping onto a high stool.
Apparently this accident was written about in the paper, along with Jimmy’s resulting fear of heights, as we see later in the movie, which is why he was targeted to be the fall-guy for a murder plot.
Johnny demonstrating his theory of how he can cure his vertigo (hint: it doesn’t work)
One of his old classmates hired him as a private detective to follow his wife whom he fears has mental issues and/or has been possessed by a relative in her past.
Stewart is reluctant to take on the assignment at first, but after getting a glimpse of his wife played by Kim Novak in the restaurant, he agrees to take on the job.
Johnny first sees Madeline in a restaurant and decides take the case
The romance
Johnny falls desperately in love with Madeline, and it becomes clear that she is mentally unstable. He saves her from one attempt on her own life. Then, in a dramatic climax, she falls to her death from the top of a tower which Jimmy Stewart couldn’t climb in time because of his vertigo.
Contrary to Hitchcock’s beliefs, we thought there was great on-screen chemistry between Jimmy Stewart who falls for the mysterious, beautiful but tortured Madeline.
She also accidentally falls in love with him, which wasn’t part of the plan, but it’s too late for her to back out of the plan by the time she realizes it.
Madeline and Johnny fall in love
Madeline dramatically falls to her death in what appears to be suicide
As if Johnny hasn’t been through enough already, now he has to go to court to prove her death wasn’t his fault, then afterwards he is hospitalized for his shock and blaming himself for her death.
After Madeline falls to her death, Johnny has to sit through court to determine if her death was his fault
Judy looks remarkably like Madeline, just a bit less classy
After getting out of the hospital, he chances to run into a woman that looks remarkably like Madeline.
Spoiler alert!
In a true Hitchcock twist, it turns out that the woman who had fallen from the tower was the real Madeline, and Kim Novak’s character had been pretending to be Madeline in an elaborate plot with the college buddy to kill the real Madeline…. i.e. she pretended to be the Madeline with suicidal tendencies, and then it looks like she did commit suicide when the real Madeline is thrown from the tower. Johnny is the patsy who couldn’t get to the top of the tower due to his vertigo and can also testify to her mental state.
Judy was able to pull it off until she makes the mistake of putting on the necklace that belonged to the real Madeline
He doesn’t put it together right away, but is at first creepily getting her to dress the way Madeline used to dress. But then she makes the mistake of wearing a piece of jewelry that he knew was Madeline’s.
In the final climatic scene, he takes her back to the bell tower and forces her to climb to the top, trying to get a confession out of her . . . Suddenly a nun comes out of the shadows and Judy is startled, falling back out of the tower, in a twist of fate, dying the same way she had helped kill the real Madeline.
Johnny forces Judy to climb the tower with him, determined to have answers
Vertigo characters: James Stewart, aka, John Scottie Ferguson
IMDB’s description of Vertigo:
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“A former police detective juggles wrestling with his personal demons and becoming obsessed with a hauntingly beautiful woman.”
Which is somewhat accurate . . . Jame Stewart does one of his best performances as a detective wrestling with his struggles of vertigo and his feelings of guilt over the accident in the beginning of the film when a policeman falls to his death.
You really relate and sympathize with him as his story unfolds. He’s also a great detective, being able to figure out what happened later on in the film when he runs into Kim Novak’s character again, this time as Judy.
Vertigo characters: Kim Novak, aka Madeline, aka Judy
Personal huge Kim Novak fan! She does such a good job at playing the completely different personalities of both the melancholy Madeline and the feisty Judy.
Her struggle is also very relatable, even though she is the assistant in the plot to kill the man’s wife, she does seem to genuinely fall in love with Johnny. Later on, when he finds her again, she wants to run, but she’s still in love with him and stays, a decision that ultimately costs her her life when she accidentally falls to her death from the bell tower.
Vertigo characters: Tom Helmore aka Gavin Elster aka the “bad guy”
Gavin was Johnyy’s college buddy, who married into a shipbuilding business worth a lot of money . . . we don’t know much about his character, except we know that he was the mastermind behind the plot to kill his wife.
He speaks of leaving the country at the inquisition scene, but this actually feels like a loose end that is never tied up. Kim Novak’s character Judy falls to her death as payback for what she helped do to his wife, but there isn’t any mention of what happens to him.
Loose ends…what happened?
There are so many loose ends in Vertigo, they warrants their own blog post!
But here are a few of the big ones that stand out.
The scene at the beginning where James Stewart first gets his Vertigo as a result of a colleague trying to help him and falling to his death, how did he get up from the gutter?
James Stewart is left hanging—how did he get up?
His hands looked like they were beginning to slip, not to mention that gutter doesn’t look to be in the best of shape either
What happened to the bad guy, Gavin Elster, played by Tom Helmore? He was the one who orchestrated the murder of his wife, and arranged for Scottie to be the fall-guy.
Did he just get away with it?
Gavin mentions at James Stewart’s hearing that he wants to go travel in Europe, then we never hear from him again…
We see quite a bit of Barbara Del Goddess’s character throughout the movie, but it never gets wrapped up. She seems to like him, and they were once engaged, but do they end up together?
Did James Stewart end up with Midge at the end?
Or did she get ‘left hanging’ as well?
Saw it in ’58 while at college. Thought it to be the best film ever, on so many levels. Having seen it an additional 3 dozen times throughout the years, I realized that my initial response, intensified with each viewing, was correct, and the critics were clueless. Over time, every review duplicated my initial feeling. Would that my decision to marry the guy With whom I saw the film in 1958 was as spot on as my critique of the film!
Without a doubt. So stunningly, visually, beautiful, I fashioned my bridal bouquet after the one featured repeatedly in the film. Okay; the marriage was a mistake of enormous proportions, but the flowers were magnificent.
I agree about all the plot holes. And the biggest one in my opinion is “why did Judy do,it?” It is never explained. Was it for money? She was still living in that seedy hotel and working as a sales clerk. How is Gavin find her? He just saw someone who he thought looked like his wife and convinced her to do this elaborate plan? “ I’ll give you a ton of money to do this”. She says “no, I’ll just go back to my crappy job and live in that crappy hotel.” I’ll never understand why this is considered to be such a terrific movie. Also, as I said before, Scotty sees Judy on the street and follows her to her hotel room. She opens the door and there stands the man she was in love with and who she never thought she would see again! Any reaction? No, not a reaction on her face at all! Not possible!! I have been dying to say this for ages. Thanks.