Dark side of romantic love

Rating: 10/10 (11 August 2010)

***SPOILERS BELOW***
What I find striking about this film is how it presents such a pessimistic view of romantic love.
James Stewart (as Scotty) starts out playing one of his average-guy hero characters, who falls into depression and then into a troubling obsession because of his misplaced romantic love.
Most films seem to glorify romance & love. Hitchcock seems to have wanted to point out that though this emotion can be at the center of our lives it is often based upon superficialities.
Many films present love as something that is destine to happen between two people. I think that Hitchcock was having fun with this idea, flipping it on its head and twisting it with all sorts of irony...
e.g. The person who Scotty fell so deeply in love with did not really exist, she was simply an 'act' (i.e. It's Judy pretending to be Madeleine, who were two very different types of women).
Scotty fell completely for the con-job that was Judy pretending to be Madeleine. Then to complicate things Judy in turn also falls in love with him.
As part of a murder scheme, Scotty is led to believe 'his' Madeleine has died, in part, due to his negligence. Later when he is wandering the streets of San Francisco he stumbles upon Judy whom he thinks only looks like his lost love. He then strikes up a romantic relationship with her... But Scotty does not appear to be capable of loving Judy for who she really is. e.g. He had become morbidly obsessed with Judy's fake version of Madeleine and he pressures Judy into looking & acting like her (once again), which she does out of love for him.
Because of Judy's love for Scotty she decides that her tastes, preferences and even her personality didn't really matter anymore... e.g. Judy gives-in to Scotty's desires and takes on the personality of someone very different from herself.
In one sense Scotty is the archetypal romantic hero, who against all odds finds his lost love. But in another sense he is a 'sucker' and someone who has been rendered mentally unstable by his love for a woman who never really existed.
Contrast this with Scotty's best friend (Midge), a fairly attractive woman who adores him. Compared to Judy, Midge seems like a woman much more suited to Scotty's tastes. But he is just too romantically fixated on Judy's 'faux' Madeleine for Midge to have a real shot at him.
This movie is great for a lot of reasons, many of which have already been mentioned here in other reviews, including: 1.) Novak skillfully playing two very different personalities. 2.) The view it gives us of San Francisco circa the 1950's. 3.) The movie's plot goes through very interesting thematic changes (Starting as a supernatural love story/drama then changing mid-stream into a psychological drama heavily laden with irony.). 4.) It has a wonderful musical score. 5.) And there is a VERY dark ending to the story (Something almost unheard of in American movies prior to the mid-1960's)
There are some slight glitches to this film's storyline, None of which I feel are too distracting with the possible exception of the somewhat convoluted wife-murder-scheme, which might seem too far-fetched for some people to accept. But then again, this murder scheme seems just as believable as those portrayed in many of Agatha Christie's famous stories.
If I remember correctly Hitchcock said that he felt that such background details were not that important when trying to get an audience immersed into a story. Hey the story works for me! This is one of my favorite movies.