Rock Hudson Original Scottie

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2011)

Yes, it truly would have been an original choice to cast Rock Hudson as Scottie Ferguson. He would have been right for the role in every way: looks, temperament, acting ability. He had already shown a successful romantic side in his Sirk soaps. And he had the brawn and all-American good looks to be believable as a retired San Francisco detective. At 32, he would have been more than believable as the love interest of Kim Novak, then 24. At any age he was a more sensitive actor with a greater range and sensibility than Stewart. Finally, among Hollywood producers, he would have been a plausible choice for the more than decent box office performance of his films. As it is, James Stewart, a non-actor, ruined the film because of his advanced age and for the dreary character he chose to create. He does not succeed in portraying a man poetically obsessed by a feminine ideal. When I first saw this movie I thought it was Kim Novak who stood in the way of Vertigo's becoming a masterpiece. But she actually does an acceptable job of embodying both the classy Madeleine and the baser Judy. Later I found out that even Hitchcock did not object to Novak's replacing Vera Miles, his original Madeleine; and when he had the chance to re-sign Miles after her pregnancy, he stayed with Novak. The only big mistake as far as Novak is concerned is the inclusion of the letter writing scene in which Judy Barton confesses her crime to Scottie and the audience. Hitchcock tried to have the scene deleted as he knew its absence would have made the movie more ambiguous and intriguing until the final half hour. It would have been more exciting to discover Judy's crime along with Scottie as he recognized the necklace from Carlotta's portrait. What's so wrong about Stewart? He was just under 50 in 1957, but he seems more like 70. He's doing his usual hapless bull in a China shop, where someone of greater finesse is called for. The naive persona which was charming in a movie like The Shop Around the Corner had been exaggerated by the time of It's a Wonderful Life and later films into a doddering caricature of Elmer Fudd. It's a bore and never appropriate for a romantic lead. The final scene would have played a thousand times better with Scottie seducing her to the top of the tower, instead of manhandling her as the screenplay called for. The sudden violence is out of character for Scottie, nor does it square with his romantic obsession to turn a woman—even as vulgar as Judy—into his ideal. The way the movie plays now, it's as if Stewart drags her to the belfry to throw her off. Had she gone willingly, then fallen out of her own guilt and fear, it would have seemed to be poetic justice instead of vendetta. Obviously the screenplay was partly to blame. But a lot of that incorrect emotion created by the ending has to do with Stewart's poor acting.