Obsession as Grand Melodrama in Hitchcock's Most Hypnotic Work

Rating: 10/10 (18 February 2006)

This legendary 1958 masterwork from Alfred Hitchcock plays like grand Baroque opera full of exaggerated character motivations and preposterous plot turns, yet it is one of the most consistently involving of his impressive canon of films perhaps because he takes an unsavory subject, sexual obsession, and shapes around it a remarkably perceptive character-driven mystery thriller. Co-written with intricacy by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor, the tightly drawn story focuses on John "Scottie" Ferguson, a plainclothes detective who quits the police force after his partner dies during a rooftop chase where Ferguson is debilitated by a severe case of acrophobia. An old college acquaintance, now a shipping tycoon, convinces the now-retired Ferguson to follow his disturbed, potentially suicidal wife Madeleine, and thus begins Ferguson's first obsession.
The film twists and turns until her apparent death from a fall from the San Juan Batista mission church steeple. This is where Hitchcock does something quite audacious. Suffering from this unexpected tragedy, the hero of the movie becomes a darker character we are suddenly not sure about. By fate back in San Francisco, Ferguson meets a shopgirl named Judy who bears enough of a physical resemblance to Madeleine for him to stalk her and force her to change her appearance to look like his lost love. At first, it feels rather necrophilic if not downright deranged for Ferguson to act on his obsession of a dead woman, but regardless, a final twist makes the love between Ferguson and Judy impossible to endure. Hitchcock lends a deepening sense of emotionalism to the maddening but addictive spirals of the plot which ultimately makes the film's title even more resonant than the medical condition Ferguson has.
Casting is crucial to making the storyline relevant to a viewer much less credible. In a nice change-of-pace, James Stewart makes Ferguson's obsession palpable, and his everyman demeanor takes on a convincing sinister edge, even though his natural affability sneaks through effectively as a counterbalance. In what remains a most underrated performance, Kim Novak manages to play her dual roles with a surprising lack of affectation, from the cool mystique of Madeleine to the desperate eagerness of Judy. Hitchcock uses Novak's natural detachment as an actress to the movie's advantage, as I doubt the more versatile Grace Kelly could have played at least the Judy part as well. Barbara Bel Geddes has precious few scenes in the relatively thankless role of Midge, Ferguson's sometime girlfriend. The San Francisco locations are used to great advantage - the Palace of Fine Arts, the Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fort Point, the now-defunct Ernie's restaurant, the Podesta Baldocchi flower shop, the cemetery at Mission Dolores - all shot in lustrous detail by Robert Burks. Bernard Herrmann contributes one of his great scores to complement the pacing and atmosphere of the mystery and suspense.
The DVD has the splendid 1996 restoration which captures all the visual and aural splendor of the film. It also includes an alternative commentary track that features Novak, restorers Robert Harris and James Katz, Hitchcock's daughter Patricia and most interestingly, associate producer Herbert Coleman who is full of anecdotes. Harris and Katz figure prominently in an interesting 1997 half-hour documentary on the original production and restoration process. There have been many knock-offs - including Brian DePalma's derivative 1976 "Obsession", Kenneth Branagh's blackly humorous 1991 "Dead Again" and most recently, Jun Ichikawa's coldly antiseptic 2005 "Tony Takitani" - but this is most definitely the one to experience.