page_title: Vertigo (film)
section_title: Cinematic restoration release
hierarchical_section_title: Vertigo (film) / Release / Cinematic restoration release
caption_attribution_description: English: Screenshot from the original 1958 theatrical trailer for the film VertigoFrame taken from MPEG4. Note: This version of the original 1958 theatrical trailer is of significantly lower quality than the 1996 restoration theatrical trailer.
context_page_description: Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller film directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts by Boileau-Narcejac. The screenplay was written by Alec Coppel and Samuel A. Taylor.
  The film stars James Stewart as former police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson. Scottie is forced into early retirement because an incident in the line of duty has caused him to develop arcophobia and vertigo. Scottie is hired by an acquaintance, Gavin Elster, as a private investigator to follow Gavin's wife Madeleine, who is behaving strangely.
  The film was shot on location in San Francisco, California, and at Paramount Studios in Hollywood. It is the first film to use the dolly zoom, an in-camera effect that distorts perspective to create disorientation, to convey Scottie's acrophobia. As a result of its use in this film, the effect is often referred to as "the Vertigo effect".
  Vertigo received mixed reviews upon initial release, but is now often cited as a classic Hitchcock film and one of the defining works of his career.
context_section_description: In October 1983, Rear Window and Vertigo were the first two films re-released by Hitchcock's estate after his death. These two films and three others – The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Rope (1948) – had been kept out of distribution by Hitchcock since 1968. Cleaning and restoration were performed on each film when new 35 mm prints were struck.
  In 1996, the film was given a lengthy and controversial restoration by Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz and re-released to theaters. The new print featured restored color and newly created audio, using modern sound effects mixed in DTS digital surround sound. In October 1996, the restored Vertigo premiered at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, with Kim Novak and Patricia Hitchcock in person. At this screening, the film was exhibited for the first time in DTS and 70mm, a format with a similar frame size to the VistaVision system in which it was originally shot. When restoring the sound, Harris and Katz wanted to stay as close as possible to the original, and had access to the original music recordings that had been stored in the vaults at Paramount. However, as the project demanded a new 6-channel DTS stereo soundtrack, it was necessary to re-record some sound effects using the Foley process. The soundtrack was remixed at the Alfred Hitchcock Theatre at Universal Studios. Aware that the film had a considerable following, the restoration team knew that they were under particular pressure to restore the film as accurately as possible. To achieve this, they used Hitchcock's original dubbing notes for guidance of how the director wanted the film to sound in 1958. Harris and Katz sometimes added extra sound effects to camouflage defects in the old soundtrack ("hisses, pops, and bangs"); in particular they added extra seagull cries and a foghorn to the scene at Cypress Point. The new mix has also been accused of putting too much emphasis on the score at the expense of the sound effects.
caption: James Stewart as Johnny "Scottie" Ferguson in Midge's apartment, standing on a stepladder trying to overcome his acrophobia
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