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The Bargain Nexus - Vertigo (1958)
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $3.50
Your Save: $ 11.48 ( 77% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Isabel Analla, Raymond Bailey, Barbara Bel Geddes, Paul Bryar, Ellen Corby
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780783221342
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 0783221347
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: 1999-08-03
Running Time: 128
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1950
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: 4 stars out of 4
Comment: The Bottom Line:
Vertigo begins as a typical Hitchcock movie, with a typical "aww-shucks" performance from James Stewart, before turning everything on its head and emerging as a great film about obsession that stands as one of the best films "The Master" ever made and perhaps one of the best of all time.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: The Strange Mrs. Allister
Comment: The film begins with a woman's face - her eyes look bloodshot. Then the credits roll. There is a chase on the rooftops. One man slips and falls to his death. The other survives with a foot injury. [Does he look out his Rear Window?] Acrophobic? Can a cantilevered brassiere be revolutionary? John Ferguson is "available", like other Frisco bachelors. Is his problem curable? [Is there subtle humor here?] San Francisco is changing since the war. [Shipping was moving across the bay.] John is hired to follow another man's wife; there is fear from the dead. Reluctantly, Scotty accepts for an old friend. Scotty's Dodge follows the Jaguar. [The cars date the picture.] Isn't he following too closely?
The Mission Dolores is an old historical church. "Carlotta Valdes 1831-1857". Next the Museum. Whose picture is on the wall? Then the McKittrick Hotel. "It does seem silly." Did she drop her tail? Scotty will consult a local expert at a book shop, and learns Frisco history. "Poor thing." Madeleine has jewelry owned by Carlotta Valdes, her great-grandmother. [Would a suicide be buried in a church cemetery?] Next to the Presidio, beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Will Madeleine jump into the cold water? What next? Will Goldilocks sleep in Papa Bear's bed? "What happened?" [Note the coffee percolator.] Madeleine leaves, Scotty follows. [Does this film move slowly?] They go for a ride in the country and look at an old redwood tree. There is talk about not knowing the recent past. "How do you know?" Do the conversations make sense?
Scotty's old girlfriend Midge is skilled at painting. But Johnny is not impressed. [What does that tell you?] Next they travel to a historic mission church. "There's an answer for everything." [But is it the correct answer?] They climb the stairs to the bell tower. Something falls past the window. There is a coroner's inquest: suicide from an unsound mind. [But now I got a hint to the ending.] "You and I both know who killed Madeleine." Scotty has dreams or nightmares. Does Mozart's music have healing qualities? Is Johnny sedated? After his release he revisits their former places. Does he recognize a woman on the street? Johnny follows her to a hotel. Judy Barton tells her story. She's not in Kansas anymore and has a driver's license to prove it. There is a flashback to what happened at that bell tower? Judy writes a letter and tells the truth. But she decides to stay and dine with Scotty. They visit the Exposition during the day. Scotty is controlling, he wants Judy to dress like Madeleine. Why is he doing this? [Does he have a clue?] Then he notices Judy is wearing that same necklace? Will Scotty break free of the past? What will Judy say or do? [Is there a pattern of deaths in the presence of Scotty?]
The "Foreign Censorship Ending" is much better than the short ending since it wraps up the loose ends. Any investigation into Madeleine's recent past would have revealed the plot. The spouse or boyfriend is always the prime suspect in an unusual death; a person who profits from the death doubly so. Once you've seen this you will understand the rationale for the 1984 film "Body Double", a better film which echoes the ideas from this film. Contrast this plodding film to "North by Northwest".
Customer Rating:
Summary: The vertigo comes from trying to make sense of the plot
Comment: Overrated. And here's why (spoilers ahead):
The main character is a detective who lets both criminals we see him encounter escape and who manages to stand around while two women and a policeman are killed. While the murderer in the main part of the story has the good sense to leave town, the accomplice hangs around like nothing has happened and then proceeds to enter a seriously twisted affair with the detective. Now if you were a murderer with a carefully thought out master plan to get away with killing your wife, would you leave your accomplice knocking around the same town you killed your wife in, able to implicate you at any time? Uhhhh no.
Then there's the big final love affair. Our detective hero is obsessive, controlling, and obviously mentally ill from the first time she meets him BUT she falls for him anyway. It is increasingly obvious as the affair goes on, that the only way it makes any sense is if she is deeply disturbed as well.
On the plus side, the San Francisco scenery is excellent (there's lots of driving around) and there is plenty of clever direction and fine cinematography. For San Franciscans, or visitors with nothing better to do, the Wikipedia entry for Vertigo has a nice summation of the actual and fake San Francisco locations used in the film, a number of which are still around to be visited.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Classic Hitchcock! Beautifully restored!
Comment: What's not to love about this restored version of Hitchcock's most arty, if not most entertaining work? The visual impact of this movie is enhanced by the restoration. Repeat viewing reveals the importance of color as symbol, and the incredible use of San Francisco's sweeping scenery as a character in the drama. This is Hitchcock at his most thoughtful and introspective, though, so viewers new to this film should be forewarned that the pacing may be a bit slow for modern tastes, but well worth it. The added documentaries are also well worth watching.
Customer Rating:
Summary: AN EXQUISITE NIGHTMARE
Comment: VERTIGO is the most beautiful movie Hitchcock created, with stunningly brilliant cinematography, the magnificent costumes of Edith Head, and an unforgettable score by Bernard Hermann. It is also perhaps the greatest romantic psycho-thriller of all time.
Jimmy Stewart as a retired acrophobic cop was never more compelling, or complicated, and Kim Novak as the breathtaking, and coldly sensual Madeleine, and the much less, refined Judy, was positively mesmerizing.
The story is about a tragic love affair, murder, and madness. John, ( Stewart ) is so obsessed with his dead lover that he attempts to remake a girl ( Judy ), into his dearly-departed because of the strong physical resemblance she bears to the deceased. Judy has fallen so badly for John that she allows him to totally dictate her life ( Svengali had nothin' on this guy ). The performances of Stewart, and Novak resonate long after the movie ends ( of course, I have seen the film at least forty times... ).
I personally found D'ENTRE LES MORTS ( the book VERTIGO is based on ) to be a little hyperbolic for my taste, but Samuel Taylor's screenplay breathed life into the characters.
Much has been made about the famous 'dream sequence' in VERTIGO. The truth is that the entire movie is a dream-, haunting, rhapsodic, and powerfully hypnotic.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Although it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the most recent survey. (Universal Pictures' spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed the operative word) in love and...well, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, Vertigo is as lovely as it is haunting. --Jim Emerson
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