Afraid of Brunettes

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2002)

James Stewart is "Scottie" a serious detective who's scared of heights but not afraid to follow a client's blond wife Madeleine(Kim Novak) around San Francisco.Scottie and the audience only focused on poor Madeleine,we notice that he only speaks to her after he saves her from drowning.
The film will surprise us with a more twisted subject: Madeleine is out of the picture,Scottie is devastated but he sees a woman,Judy(a brunet Novak again) Who resembles the dead female.Our poor detective is so obsess by her that he even makes her over as Madeleine.There's a plot a little unrealistic(a murder plan)and some questionÂ… in the open scene of Vertigo we see Scottie left hanging by the fingers in a roof.How he get down from that?.In the next scene we only see him using a cane?.
Vertigo works because Scottie is profound and complex it deals with obsession;manipulation; fear and most of all "guilty".This fellow Scottie is a tortured man.Maybe Madeleine represents "an ideal woman" as all Hitchcock blonde actresses: Madeleine Carrol;Joan Fontaine;Marlene Dietrich;Doris Day; Tippi Heddren and Hitch's Favorite "Grace Kelly".
Donald Spoto amazing book"the Dark side of Genius" suggests that Scottie resembles the director's obsession for actresses and turn them into blond goddesses.Hitch work out his sexual fantasies on films.This one is particular fascinating and disturbing as all men's mind. 8/10