The Paramount of Hitchcock films

Rating: 10/10 (1 May 2020)

I'll never forget my first time seeing this one. I watched it when I was 16 and was enamored by he suspenseful romance.
While many will cite either Psycho or North by Northwest as the greatest-of-all Hitchcock films, my vote would go to Vertigo. Jimmy Stewart works so well with the classy Kim Novak. The colorful style (especially in regard for a film made 62 years ago) fits so well in a world of romance. I personally love the scene in the beginning where Stewart is trailing Novak in the car and we see San Francisco in all of its vintage glory.
Vertigo is arguably the greatest detective story, even beating Polanski's Chinatown in my opinion. This film has everything from a grade-a star list, the Hitchcock fun, the excitement, the drama, the beautiful shots of Golden Gate and the psychedelic paranoia scene with Jimmy Stewart's head in focus (it may look a little silly by today's standards, but it shows how the film is a great vestige to the past.
With regards to the paramount of suspense, the horrid ending with the nun ringing the bell as his lover falls to her death, we know full well that Jimmy would never recover from a situation like this in real life. We may think of classic films as being more tame with regards to content, but this is a really disturbing story in its own way and we understand that Jimmy probably spent many years in Mental Health Hospitals coupled with intense weekly therapy.