Review of Vertigo (1958) by Dukejon — 20 Jun 2021

Finally got round to watching this the other day and it wasn't what I expected. James Stewart's character is an unlikeable creep who manipulates and harasses women. His idea of stealthily trailing someone is to drive two cars behind then walk ten feet behind them for days at a time.

The whole plot is very unplausible, the contrived idea of having a fake wife using Stewart as a fall guy could have fallen through in dozen's of different ways; why the husband didn't just push his wife off a cliff and make it out to be an accident instead of using this overcomplicated plan is beyond me.

I might also say that if my wife changed her hairstyle and hair colour and put on different clothes I wouldn't fail to recognise her as my wife, yet we are expected to believe Stewart's character didn't recognise Madeline/Judy when she's standing literally right in front of him.

For me the real star is the excellent score by Bernard Herrmann, and the cinematography (in particular lighting and locations). An eerie mood and tone permeates the film throughout. Beyond that is a slow unconvincing plod to the sudden shock ending.

One of the best movies ever made? Hitchcock has done far better work than this.