- From the first apprehensive musical scales of its wonderfully phantasmagorical opening sequence, Vertigo immediately announces itself as something new. It took Alfred Hitchcock 35 years to attempt a bona fide tragedy, but the result is inarguably one of his best works. Actually, it's more like two of his best works. The film's distinct halves tell two very different, yet inextricably intertwined, parts of the same story. That story begins when Detective John "Scottie" Ferguson (Jimmy Stewart) discovers, in the midst of a police chase that claims the life of his partner, that he has vertigo.
- While recovering from his traumatic experience in the company of his friend and former fiance, Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes), Scottie is contacted by Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), an old college chum who wants the newly-retired former detective to take on one last case. But first he must ask if Scottie believes that "someone out of the past - someone dead - can enter and take possession of a living being." That's what Elster's wife Madeleine (Kim Novak) apparently thinks, and her mysterious, trancelike behavior has Elster worried. Scottie's initial reluctance to get involved quickly evaporates when he spies the gorgeous, green-dressed Madeleine at a restaurant. Before long, he's trailing Madeleine around the labyrinthine streets of San Francisco in a wonderful sequence of dialogue-free scenes. Her daily routine is odd, including stops at a flower shop, a gravesite, and an art museum, but the first real indication of trouble arrives when Scottie notices that Madeleine is dressed exactly like a woman in a painting. A woman named Carlotta Valdes, who killed herself a hundred years before.
- Scottie's role in this case becomes considerably more active on the following day when he rescues Madeleine from drowning in San Francisco Bay. She claims to remember nothing, of course, but we get the feeling that he recalls every detail (particularly those having to do with removing her wet clothes). Now that they've been properly introduced, Scottie is all-too-eager to help Madeleine aimlessly occupy her afternoons (ditching Midge in the process), although her continued strangeness remains a cause for some concern. "Here I was born, and there I died," she says at one point, eerily counting off Carlotta's years on a set of exposed tree rings. In a particularly tumultuous scene at a Spanish mission, Madeleine breaks free from Scottie's embrace and dashes up the stairs of a steeple tower. As Scottie is paralyzed by his vertigo (famously represented by Hitchcock's specially invented "trombone shot"), he hears a scream and sees a body go flying past. Although a humiliating coroner's inquest finds him not guilty, the late Mrs. Elster's death affects Scottie deeply, spurring a terrifying technicolor dream that lands him a stint in an asylum. Once released, it becomes Scottie's turn to roam the streets in a trance, haunting all of the places he and Madeleine once visited.
- The film's second story begins when a forlorn Scottie spots a lovely green-dressed woman walking down the street. Was it my imagination or was there was a pause of recognition on her part, too? Although her hair and voice are more Selina, Kansas than San Francisco, Judy certainly reminds Scottie (and the audience) of Madeleine, right down to the way she opens her apartment window. How could two completely different women look so much alike? The film doesn't even try to make the audience guess, revealing in flashback precisely how this particular spirit returned from the dead. Now Judy and Scottie have a chance to start their relationship anew, but first Scottie must insist on buying Judy some new clothes. And we'll have to do something about that hair. "Judy, please, it can't matter to you," Scottie implores. After a final trip to the Spanish mission, Scottie's tragic attempt to transform Judy into Madeleine is completely successful, leading to the same devastating outcome as before.
- Without a doubt, Vertigo is one of Hitchcock's best and most beautiful films. Consider, for instance, the montage of scenes in which Scottie spies on Madeleine. While a lesser film (even a lesser Hitchcock film) might have focused on the natural suspense associated with undercover detective work, Vertigo instead shifts the focus to watching Madeleine along with Scottie, wordlessly encouraging the audience to become increasingly fascinated with her too. This is similar to the approach taken in Rear Window, in which the audience looks though the same zoom lens as Jeff (in fact, Scottie's voyeurism is initially reminiscent of Jeff's, although with far more dire consequences). Each scene in the montage also gives a different visual impression of the various mirrored facets of Madeleine's life, from her radiant beauty in the restaurant, to her diffuse dreaminess at the gravesite, to her precise imitation of Carlotta at the museum. While all of this is happening, Scottie simply watches, assembling an image of the ideal woman that he will later force Judy to fit, much like Midge's aircraft engineer who designed a bra. One almost gets a sense that the director who famously claimed that "actors should be treated like cattle" is showing a hint of remorse for, or at the very least awareness of, his own crimes against actresses. Perhaps Hitchcock worried that each new menaced blonde he created meant another step further up the tower.
- I spotted Hitchcock walking in front of Elster's office.
- I take back a comment from an earlier review. Every David Lynch film is based on Shadow of a Doubt or Vertigo.
