Disappointing and corny

Rating: 6/10 (23 May 2009)

How this film got into the top 250 films on here remains beyond believe to me and I simply don't understand all the fuss about it.
I have nothing against slow paced films, some films need it to make you think (Tarkovsky's "Stalker" for instance), but here it is it's downfall as one has by far enough time to realise everything that doesn't make any sense at all. I'll give a few examples.
When Scottie (James Stewart) follows Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak) through San Francisco you can't help but wonder why on earth she doesn't realise it and how on earth a former police officer is so poor at doing it. He's following her so closely you'd expect him to crash into her car any time. This is highlighted when she turns into that small backstreet to get the flowers. There is no-one else, but still he parks his car a few metres from her's and still she doesn't get suspicious. This must also be the only film set in San Francisco that manages to show no streetcar at all.
Scottie has a friend who seems to love him in Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes, she probably gives the best performance in this film), but it remains beyond my imagination why he doesn't fall in love with her but the artificial looking Madeleine. This guy is making life difficult for himself and during the entire film I started disliking this character more and more. Sadly Midge disappears about half way through this film.
Then, when Scottie meets Judy in the street and he starts making her life a mess one wonders why she doesn't simply tell him the truth. She doesn't seem to be that stupid, but fails to realise that this may well stop him from trying to turn her back into Madeleine. During that part of the film I also started hoping for Scottie to die at the end of the film as he got so obsessed and rude with Judy that it angered me. Unfortunately this didn't happen, but Judy got so scared by a nun that she virtually jumped of that tower. Comically, really.
If this would have been the first Hitchcock film I had ever watched, then it would have been the last, too. Some of the acting is pretty lame and unconvincing, especially from Stewart, but Novak surely could have done better in a few scenes, too. Bel Geddes is good, though. In general the story/plot isn't bad at all, but the translation into a film leaves a lot to desire. During the entire film I have had ideas of how the scenes could have been shot more believable and I am as far from a director as it gets. The pace of the film is, as I have stated before, too slow for the story. Stewart seems to be behind the wheel most of the time, following Madeleine in her aimless journeys. All in all I found this film extremely cheesy. The music overly exaggerated many scenes and made things kind of predictable. Some of the shots are nice, though, but it is an absolutely pointless film. I won't ever watch this again and suggest you don't either.
Rating this waste of time 6/10 is me being generous.