Alfred Hitchcock - Vertigo [+Extras] (1958)

Review
One of Hitchcock’s most discussed films. Retired police detective Stewart, who has a fear of heights, is hired by old school chum in San Francisco to keep an eye on his wife (Novak), eventually falls in love with his quarry and that’s just the beginning; to reveal more would be unthinkable. Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor scripted, from the novel D’entre les Morts by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Haunting, dream-like thriller, with riveting Bernard Herrmann score to match; a genuinely great motion picture that demands multiple viewings.

Trivia
The film is based upon the novel “D’Entre les Morts” which was written specifically for Hitchcock after the authors heard that he tried to buy the rights to their previous novel “Diabolique”.

San Juan Batista, the Spanish mission which features in key scenes in the movie doesn’t actually have a bell tower – it was added with trick photography. The mission originally had a steeple but it was demolished following a fire.

The screenplay is credited to Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor, but Coppel didn’t write a word of the final draft. He is credited for contractual reasons only. Taylor read neither Coppel’s script nor the original novel, he worked solely from Hitchcock’s outline of the story.

Hitchcock reportedly spent a week filming a brief scene where Kim Novak stares at a portrait in the Palace of the Legion of Honor just to get the lighting right.

Hitchcock invented the famous combination of forward zoom and reverse tracking shot to convey the sense of vertigo to the audience. The view down the mission stair well cost $19,000 for just a couple of seconds of screen time.

Hitchcock originally wanted Vera Miles to play Madeleine, but she got pregnant and was therefore unavailable.

Etras:
-original, unrestored mono track
-commentary track
-“Obssessed with Vertigo” (30-min documentary with subtitles)
-Foreign Censorship Ending (with subtitles)
-2 trailers