A San Francisco detective suffering from acrophobia investigates the strange activities of an old friend's wife, all the while becoming dangerously obsessed with her.2h 8min | Mystery, Romance, Thriller | 9 May 1958
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Stars: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052357/
Saw this in the theatre via Fathom Events and TCM, Sunday matinee. Did March Madness keep the viewers away? Definitely NOT a packed house. I think The Philadelphia Story (1940) was better attended last month.
Looking at bonus features on the dvd: he even edited the moments in the bell tower before Judy dies: the nun is not a black silhouette before she appears; we see some of her habit immediately, and Judy screams as the nun moves forward. (I thought in the film that the black spectre was what frightened Judy, she stepped back as it moved forward.) As with the non-censorship version, we see Scottie standing on the ledge, intent ambiguous, not terrified of the height per se. Cut to Midge's apartment; she is listening to the radio report on Elster, thought to be living in the south of France, talking about extradicting him once he's found. Then a local story, and Midge turns it off. Then Scottie arrives, Midge hands him a drink, and neither of them says anything. The End.
My friend thought the revelation scene, where Judy writes a letter to Scottie, rips it up, and then we get a flashback, had almost been deleted from the film. Yup, here's a blog about it. In the Harris/Katz/et al commentary track (only on the dvd, not on the blu-ray) during that scene, Kim Novak talks about sometimes asking Hitch about a scene that she didn't understand (the plot). He explained that it's a mystery, and you don't want it all to make sense and/or be what is expected.
Here is why I have both the blu and the dvds in my binder:
dvd disc1:
- feature commentary w/ Herb Coleman, Harris & Katz (restoration), et al; dvd exclusive
- feature commentary w/ W.Friedkin
- foreign censorship ending
- the vertigo archives: set design & storyboard drawings
- production notes (text); dvd exclusive
- original theatrical trailer
- restoration theatrical trailer
dvd disc2:
- obsessed with vertigo: new life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece
- partners in crime: hitchcock's collaborators:
- Saul Bass: Title Champ
- Edith Head: Dressing the Master's Movies
- Bernard Herrmann: Hitchcock's Maestro
- Alma: the Master's Muse
- Hitchcock/Truffaut (14 min short by LevaFilmworks)
- Alfred Hitchcock Presents "The Case of Mr. Pelham"; dvd exclusive
blu-ray:
- obsessed with vertigo: new life for Hitchcock's Masterpiece
- partners in crime: hitchcock's collaborators:
- Saul Bass: Title Champ
- Edith Head: Dressing the Master's Movies
- Bernard Herrmann: Hitchcock's Maestro
- Alma: the Master's Muse
- Hitchcock/Truffaut (14 min short by LevaFilmworks)
- foreign censorship ending
- the vertigo archives: set design & storyboard drawings; blu: shrunken, not letterboxed
- feature commentary w/ W.Friedkin
- original theatrical trailer
- restoration theatrical trailer
- 100 years of universal: the lew wasserman era; blu-ray exclusive
Alfred J. Hitchcock Prod., distr. Paramount, dir. Hitchcock; 10
