Vertigo (1958)

Jimmy Stewart rescuing Kim Novak

Here we have for review what many call a "Classic" movie. Vertigo is directed by the often imitated, but never duplicated Alfred Hitchcock. It was unrated at the time of its release, but would probably get a PG-13 for themes of death, murder, and suicide, as well as some light sexual references.

Mark-

I haven’t seen a lot of Hitchcock movies, but the ones I have seen I have enjoyed. I’ve known about the reputation of Vertigo for a number of years, and sadly just now got around to finally watching it.

James (Jimmy) Stewart plays John "Scottie" Fergusen, a retired San Francisco detective, who develops acrophobia after a horrifying on the job experience. Scottie is asked by an old friend to follow his wife after she has been displaying some bizarre recent activities, and is concerned for her welfare. Though reluctant to get back into any type of detective work, Scottie agrees to take the assignment after falling for the beauty of Madeline Elster (Kim Novak). Convinced that Madeline has become possessed by a former ancestor of hers, Scottie becomes more worried about her stability when Madeline’s reckless behavior begins showing signs of turning suicidal. After falling in love with Madeline, Scottie is distraught and severely depressed when his acrophobia inhibits him from being able to stop Madeline from jumping to her death.

While you may be wondering from that brief summary why this movie would be so great; I would agree with you that if it stopped there and nothing else happened, then this movie would really have been nothing to shout about. However, like I have written before, I don’t want to give away any real spoilers, and it would be a shame to not be able to experience the psychological twists and turns of this movie for oneself. While there were definitely some slow and dull moments during this film, the twists and revealing points of this film more than make up for any lull in the action. You truly have to stick with this film and give it a chance to completely develop and show its full potential.

We watched this film over two sittings, and I admit that I was very skeptical and didn’t understand any of the praise for this movie after just the first day. I was convinced that Hitchcock had made a film based on supernatural phenomenon, and I just couldn’t understand what he was trying to accomplish by doing so. After completing the film I understand the hype and praise, and join those who give such, mostly because I love films with a good twist in them.

For all of the praise and recognition this film now exhorts, I was shocked to see that the only two academy awards this film was nominated for was best sound, and best art/set decoration. It didn’t win either of its nominations, but it should go down as a film known for its great screenplay, and beautiful shots of San Francisco.

While this movie didn’t necessarily captivate me and keep me drawn in as much as Rear Window or North by Northwest, I very much enjoyed this film and loved the many wow factors that it contains. 4 ½ *’s out of 5

My Random Thought For Vertigo: Clearly everyone involved with this film had never heard of the appropriate age dating rule since they broke it any way you try to look at it. The rule clearly states that the youngest appropriate age to date someone else is half of your own age plus 7 years. Taking the real life ages at the time of this movie of Stewart (50) and Novak (25), or the characters ages which is an even larger difference, any relationship between these two is clearly outside the boundaries of appropriateness.

Dan -

When I was in college I took several film classes and I attribute them to exposing me to what many call the classics. I was introduced to Citizen Kane, The Bicycle Thief, silent film comedies starring Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, and Casablanca to name a few. I was also introduced to Alfred Hitchcock with the great Rear Window, which inspired me to see a few others of his movies like North By Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much. And no, that was not a deliberate choice to only watch Hitchcock movies starring Jimmy Stewart, which all of those previous three titles do. I was merely starting out with the movies that I had heard of at the time.

Hitchcock is known as the Master of Suspense and this movie further solidifies that title. Be warned that this is a slow burner, but once the tension builds you can't stop watching. I had no idea what would happen next or how it would end. I even had another jaw dropping moment when Kim Novak jumps to her death and Jimmy Stewart, paralyzed with fear, is powerless to stop her. Up until that point I didn't feel much into the movie, but then it changed dramatically.

Speaking of Jimmy Stewart's acrophobia or vertigo (as the title suggests), Hitchcock used one of the coolest camera tricks to illustrate the effects of it. The camera is physically moved backward while the lens is simultaneously zoomed in creating an illusion of greater distance than is actually present. The camera was also rotated to intensify the impact it has on the senses, making it literally dizzying as I watched.

Some of the sequences are a little dated and sort of took me out of the movie (the beginning chase and effects, the dream sequence), but I understood what the point was. The music score in this movie also kind of grated on me. Bernard Herrmann has done some really memorable film scores (North By Northwest, Psycho), but this one almost didn't feel right for this movie. I realize that may have been the point of it at times, but when the two leads are merely driving around San Francisco is there really a need for such a noticeable underscore? Don't get me wrong, it was very effective in the tense parts, but the rest could have been toned down a bit.

I wanted to love this movie, but I only ended up liking it a lot. I give it 4 out of 5 stars because it took me by surprise a few times, and because I could literally feel the emotions in the final scene from each of the characters in it simultaneously.

Side note: If you really want an in-depth analysis of this movie read Roger Ebert's review of the movie, but beware of major spoilers. It does help give this movie tremendous depth for shallow people like me, and it helped me appreciate it more.