Swirling Void

Rating: 6/10 (22 June 2007)

Back in the 80s when this film wasn't available, I read so much gushing praise for it that made me want to see it very badly. Finally the rights were resolved and five missing Hitchcock films were re-released.
Despite my eagerness to see it, I was absolutely shocked to find it plodding, unintentionally amusing (the Saul Bass nightmare with Stewarts floating head) technically awful (those terrible, terrible rear-screen shots for the driving pursuit sequence.) and so gimmicky; that junky, clunky disclosure letter (as a narrative device) that gets torn up after Scotty finds Judy. And the powerfully unsubtle-ly Freudian Midge who just falls off the face of the earth around the halfway point.
For the color restoration version I was more impressed. This must have been a factor of seeing it in a theater and coming to appreciate Stewarts anguished, pre-method performance.
After watching all the parts of it I could bear last week I'm back to my earlier assessment of it. Technically it's just so crappy looking; the haze in the graveyard. Jimmy Stewart as the worst detective ever. "Oh my God Kim Novak is two feet in front of me.... I'll just stand very still." And the introductory malarkey with trances & Gavin Elster works exactly once; on further viewings it just sits there, in the way.
Vertigo receives one alternate reading very well and that's about it for the enormous investment of your time. I find this movie artless. Give me Rear Window anytime.
But you didn't need my "me too!" vote. That's what all the other easy raves are here for.