A truly well-made film!

Rating: Null/10 (25 August 2006)

"Vertigo" is James Stewart's fourth and final picture under the direction of the Master of Suspense: Alfred Hitchcock. Today, it is quite difficult to refer to this film as anything less than a gem. (If you have not yet seen "Vertigo," please DO NOT read any further.) Stewart executes an absolutely masterful performance as San Francisco police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson, whose crippling vertigo, resulting from acrophobia, has a detrimental effect on his career. (Hitchcock makes great use of a "reverse zoom" effect, aided by Bernard Herrmann's haunting music score, as the camera aims downward to indicate Scottie's vertigo.) Kim Novak is quite wonderful as Scottie's primary love interest, the supposedly possessed & enigmatic Madeline Elster and the fairly diffident & agitated Judy Barton, both of whom are one and the same. Barbara Bel Geddes is fine as Scottie's very casual girlfriend Marjorie "Midge" Wood; Hitchcock's light touches of humor in this film primarily involve the various scenes with Scottie and Midge together. Tom Helmore as Scottie's old school chum Gavin Elster is the perfect villain who gets away with the murder of his wife Madeline, and he selects Judy to play the part of Madeline in order to dupe Scottie into believing Madeline committed suicide. One question that sticks in my mind is why Hitchcock would blatantly choose to explain how Scottie has been deceived through a flashback remembrance by Judy.
My favorite moments from "Vertigo" include the following. To begin with, Hitchcock is very clever with the use of light, color, and mirrors to astonishing effect in this masterpiece. Some of the best examples of light are the blurriness in the churchyard, possibly indicating Scottie's confusion as he follows Madeline; the sharp contrast between a dark alley and a bright flower shop; the slow dim as book shop owner Pop Liebel (Konstantin Shayne) tells Scottie & Midge about the mental breakdown & eventual suicide of Carlotta Valdes, who was Madeline's great-grandmother; the silhouette of Judy as she sits on her bed, nervous about having a relationship with Scottie; the brightening of the lights in Ernie's Restaurant when Scottie spots Madeline for the first time; and the emerging of what appears to be Madeline in the darkness of Ernie's before Scottie realizes she is a mistaken identity when she walks further into the light. Some great uses of color include Scottie's chilling nightmare sequence and the somewhat sickening neon green light shining into Judy's bedroom, which is really put to good use when Judy emerges from her washroom as the identical image of Madeline, blurred by the green light. Some examples of mirrors are the reflection of Madeline while Scottie spies on her through the door of the flower shop; the two-shot of Midge and the painting she did of herself (a la "Portrait of Carlotta") in an attempt to be funny; and the basic fact that Scottie mirrors his own nightmarish life, loving the same woman twice and witnessing her death falling from the bell tower of an old Spanish mission. Scottie's final dramatic moment of angrily frightening the truth out of Judy by forcing her up the stairs of the bell tower is quite an edge-of-the-seat experience. Equally frightening is Scottie's opening scene as he clings for his life onto a roof gutter numerous stories above the ground, his vertigo taking over as a policeman falls to his death in trying to save him. And Scottie's facial expressions are put to good use in this film as he follows Madeline around in an extended driving sequence with not a word spoken; as he suffers from acute melancholia after Madeline's death, frailly spending his time in a rest home unable to speak while Midge tries to comfort him; and as he delightfully witnesses Judy's transformation into Madeline when she walks toward him from the washroom.
"Vertigo" is considered to be James Stewart's and Alfred Hitchcock's greatest collaboration, which makes it all the more curious that it did not receive greater recognition when it was first released in 1958. Stewart was undoubtedly at the peak of his craftsmanship in "Vertigo"; his brilliant characterization of John "Scottie" Ferguson, as we find out over the course of this picture, is quite obsessive, manipulative, and DARK. In conclusion, Mr. Stewart really worked hard to turn in a frighteningly grand performance under Mr. Hitchcock's masterful direction.