An astounding movie in which James Stewart plays a monster

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2017)

This is a truly astounding movie. It is so suspenseful I found it impossible to leave the room once it got going. There is no horror, no blood, no monsters threatening to jump out at you from dark corners. But between Hitchcock's masterful set up of each shot, the almost blood-chilling acting of James Stewart playing against type, the fear on Kim Novak's cold but very beautiful face, and Bernard Hermann's score, which heightens the tension in almost unbearable fashion, this movie moves slowly and carefully to its conclusion, never once letting you go.
And then, for me, it dropped the ball from the top of the church tower and closed on a wrong note.
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Not that I wanted a "happy end" with Stewart forgetting all the pain he had been put through and marrying Novak. No, that would have been equally wrong. But Novak falling to her death because she is afraid of the person in the nun's outfit just did not work for me.
I don't know what would have worked better, though.
Still, it is an astounding movie. If you haven't seen it, treat yourself.