My First Time … Watching ‘Vertigo’

Alfred Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, and in honor of the famed auteur’s 115th birthday, we’ve declared it Hitchcock Week on Decider. Click here to follow our coverage.

Many people consider Vertigo to be the greatest film ever made. There’s no question, however, that it is indisputably Hitchcock’s masterpiece. The romantic thriller stars James Stewart as John “Scottie” Ferguson, a San Francisco detective who suffers from acrophobia and vertigo following the death of a fellow police officer. After an acquaintance asks him to follow his wife, Madeline (played by Kim Novak), who has displayed increasingly strange behavior, he finds himself mixed up in a mind-bending plot involving murder, mistaken identity, and, possibly, the supernatural. Is Madeline really who she seems? Scottie tries to find the answer, falling in love with Madeline in the process.

I hadn’t seen the film before, which is an awful thing to have to admit when you bill yourself as a film expert. I decided to give it a shot, and my thoughts about the film are below.

4:57: I know it’s not as snappy as Vertigo, but shouldn’t this movie really be called Afraid of Heights?

8:15: Scottie asks his gal-pal Midge, “What’s this doo-hickey?” Queer subtext? What queer subtext?

11:20: Scottie decides to prove to Midge he’s totally over the whole fear of heights / vertigo problem. What could possibly go wrong?

11:45: Oh.

16:17: Scottie meets this guy, who complains that his wife is, like, totally weird lately, and he thinks she might be possessed by a ghost. Maybe it’s just that she doesn’t share his penchant for nautical themes?

18:46: Blonde? Check. Icy? You betcha.

24:20: “Visit San Francisco, home of the cheeriest cemeteries in America!”

25:47: A clue! Whoever could this dead lady be?

27:26: Another clue! Carlotta Valdes is this lady!

29:17: Shout-out to the Sleep No More fans. Also, the weird silent ghost-lady might be an exhibitionist.

36:55: This man of indeterminate European descent tells Scottie and Midge that Carlotta Valdes famously killed herself a century ago. Is Carlotta possessing Madeline? (Probably not, but that would be exciting, wouldn’t it?)

43:56: Well, Madeline went ahead and jumped into the San Francisco Bay. Scottie jumped in after her, although I don’t think he’s had his lifeguard training.

59:49: “Hey, I saved your life, wanna go look at some trees with me?” “Yeah, sure.”

1:06:01: Usually there has to be a good cop for every bad cop, but Scottie has proven he’s the world’s worst cop by going ahead and making out with the woman he’s supposed to be following.

1:08:17: Poor Midge. So bad at flirting! Worried that Scottie is falling in love with the woman who happens to resemble the portrait of Carlotta Valdes, Midge then paints her own version of the portrait with her head on that body, and then she’s downright shocked when Scottie gets real weird about it.

1:16:41: Madeline tells Scottie she has to go into this church alone. What could possibly go wrong?

1:17:42: Oh.

1:24:24: I’m always astounded when movies conveniently forget that ordering a headstone for a grave takes, like, several months, and most of the time people put last names on them, too.

1:25:38: Jimmy Stewart starts tripping balls at one point, FYI.

1:32:38: After coming down off his high, Scottie starts seeing Madeline everywhere. But then he really sees Madeline in the face of this brunette named Judy.

1:39:27: Twist! Judy was just posing as Madeline. Gavin killed the real Madeline and threw her out of the bell tower, successfully completing the most complicated murder conspiracy in film history.

1:41:30: Judy explains Gavin’s plot in a letter to Scottie, but then she rips it up because she likes Scottie and doesn’t want him to get mad at her. If we have learned anything from cinema, it’s that deceiving the person you love about a major aspect of your identity and recent history is definitely the way to go!

1:45:34: We all know that Hitchcock was an incredibly influential filmmaker, but did you know that Tim Burton got his idea for the green Argentinian beauty queen in Beetlejuice from Vertigo? It’s totally true! At least until Tim Burton personally tells me otherwise.

1:48:49: Scottie and Judy are all sitting-in-a-tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G in love with each other, but things get awkward real quick when Scottie decides to give her a makeover so she’ll look like Madeline again. Judy’s like, “I don’t want to do it! I’m going to look into this mirror because it’s a motif.”

1:54:31: Judy finally dyes her hair and puts on the old Madeline suit and says to Scottie, “Ugh, happy now?” But then Scottie replies, “No, fix your dumb hair.”

1:56:08: Judy, dude. It’s getting weird. Cool it.

1:59:12: Judy asks Scottie to help her fasten her necklace and he notices that it happens to be the same necklace that Carlotta and Madeline had. Suddenly IT ALL MAKES SENSE! (None of it makes sense.)

2:05:32: Scottie is mad, so naturally he changes the location of his date with Judy to the bell tower, where she confesses Gavin’s plot.

2:08:22: ACK, THERE’S A SCARY NUN.

2:08:34: I know Scottie will probably blame the scary nun for scaring Judy so much that she jumped out the window, but maaaaybe he shouldn’t have changed her into the version of herself that wasn’t real and based on another woman, and maaaaybe he shouldn’t have taken her up the bell tower to begin with? I don’t think it’s controversial to say that Scottie was kind of a dick. (But hey, at least his vertigo is gone!)

Final Thoughts: Vertigo is, of course, as good as anyone says it is, full of technical tricks and marvels that have, naturally, been mimicked by other directors for the last 50+ years. An important aspect of the film that you can’t experience from these screenshots? Bernard Hermann’s lush, soaring score, which heightens the tension and ups the romantic sensibilities of the film. It truly is beautiful. Now, if only Scottie hadn’t been the world’s worst detective / boyfriend…

Photos: Paramount Pictures

 

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