This post for
Backlot’s Hitchcock Halloween
combines
both new and previous material.
Happy Halloween to Fearless Leader Lara & Bloggers!
*** Caution!
You’re in The House Where Spoilers Dwell! ***
(No fooling —
SPOILERS galore here!)
Face One:
For me,
Vertigo keeps getting better over time! It’s hard to believe
now, but when I was younger, I used to have a love/hate relationship with Alfred
Hitchcock’s classic romantic psychological thriller
Vertigo. I loved its suspense; its
moving performances; the dreamlike quality of its haunting love story; and most
of all, Bernard Herrmann’s score. So why did it take me years to embrace
Vertigo as wholeheartedly as our beleaguered
hero John “Scottie” Ferguson embraces his beloved Madeleine Elster? The
ever-awesome James Stewart (from such classic Hitchcock thrillers as
Rear Window; the 1956
version
of
The Man Who Knew Too Much; Rope; and the not-Hitchcockian but nevertheless
delightful Stewart’s
Oscar-winning performance in
The Philadelphia
Story (yes, sometimes even Team Bartilucci enjoys non-Hitchcock movies!).
 |
Dames! They always put a guy in a spin!
|
Stewart plays
John Ferguson, “Scottie” to friends (more about that shortly). Scottie is a
former police detective who finds out the hard way that he has acrophobia (fear
of heights, to us laypeople) when he can’t save a patrolman from falling to his
death during a rooftop chase. Since
Vertigo is a Hitchcock movie, what
better place for our hero to live and wrestle with his phobia than San
Francisco; oh, that Hitch, always adding a touch of sadism for his beleaguered
protagonists to work through, that scamp!
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| Poor Scottie would rather be on The Spirit of St. Louis right now! |
We meet
Scottie as he’s visiting longtime friend Midge Wood, played by scene-stealer
Barbara Bel Geddes from
Panic in the Streets; I Remember Mama; TV’s
Dallas as the beloved Miss Ellie.
Fun Fact: Bel Geddes was
also the daughter of Norman Bel Geddes, the renowned theatrical and industrial
designer. But I digress! Scottie and Midge had been engaged “for three whole
weeks” before they opted to be just friends instead, though it sure looks to me like it’s clear Midge
would like more. Midge is working on a cantilever bra invented by an engineer;
nice work if you can get it! Ever loyal, Midge tries to help Scottie overcome
his fear of heights gradually with stepladders: “I look up, I look down...” And
it was all going so well! Too bad the ladders happened to be next to Midge’s
high-rise apartment window; poor guy, it's always something!
 |
| Madeleine Elster: It's magic...or maybe witchcraft...whatever it is,we're spellbound! |
Scottie’s old college chum Gavin Elster (suave Tom Helmore from
Designing
Woman; Advise and Consent; and several episodes of
Alfred
Hitchcock Presents, of course)
offers Scottie a private investigator
job tailing his lovely but troubled young wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak in her
finest, most challenging, and moving performance, even more so than
The Man
with the Golden Arm and the 1964 version of
Of Human Bondage). It
seems that Madeleine—one of the coolest and most elegant of the director’s
legendary “Hitchcock Blondes"—thinks she’s possessed by the spirit of her late
great-grandmother Carlotta Valdes, and is behaving accordingly. Scottie, ever
the “hard-headed Scot,” is a tough sell at first:
Gavin Elster:
“Scottie, do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter
and take possession of a living being?”
Scottie:
“No.”
Gavin:
“If I told you that I believe this has happened to my wife, what would you say?”
Scottie: “Well, I’d say take her to the nearest psychiatrist, or
psychologist, or neurologist, or psycho—or maybe just the plain family doctor.
I’d have him check on you, too.”
But it soon becomes clear Gavin is serious about his troubled wife, so for old
times’ sake, Scottie takes the job and discreetly tails Madeleine all over San
Francisco to the places where the tragic Carlotta lived, loved, and went mad
after her sugar daddy “threw her away” and kept their love child. Midge has
plenty of knowledge about the old days of San Francisco, like “…who shot who in
the Embarcadero in August 1879.” Midge and Scottie go to The Argosy Book Shop,
where all the great San Francisco sleuths like Sam Spade in
The Maltese Falcon and Phillip Marlowe in
The Big Sleep and
Murder, My Sweet
take care of no-goodniks, with the help of book seller/historian “Pop” Liebel
(Konstantin Shayne from
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty The Stranger; The Seventh
Cross). It’s like the most elegant, discreet
shadowing ever — that’s what I call class!
 |
| Madeleine and
Scottie: so close and yet so far! |
Our determined hawkshaw
finally comes face to face with his quarry after saving her when she jumps into
the bay in one of her fugue states. That’s “meeting cute” on a whole other
level! Interestingly, Scottie introduces himself by his Christian name, John,
and Madeleine says she likes that strong name — and yet they both end up calling
him “Scottie,” a more playful, almost childlike name. Perhaps it’s because the
two of them aren’t truly comfortable because Madeleine just might be hiding
secrets from him? To quote
The Marvelettes, the hunter is captured by the game. Soon Scottie and
Madeleine are mad for each other— but it seems poor troubled Madeleine is also
mad in a less romantic way. When she confides in Scottie about her recurring
morbid dreams about the Mission at San Juan Bautista, Scottie brings her there
in hopes of curing her obsession. Bad move, Scottie — Madeleine bolts to the
bell tower! Scottie gives chase, but his vertigo paralyzes him halfway up the
stairs (great spatial F/X here). Poor Madeleine! Where’s Dr. Constance Petersen
from
Spellbound when you need her? And
poor Scottie! He hears a woman screaming, sees a body fall past the
window...and his beloved Madeleine is no more.
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| Carlotta Valdes' final resting place...unless she's subletting with Madeleine's soul! |
Or is she? After he recovers from a grief-induced nervous breakdown, Scottie
spies shopgirl Judy Barton (the versatile Novak again). Except for her red hair
and somewhat tacky fashion sense, Judy’s a dead ringer for Madeleine! As their
relationship grows, so does audience apprehension as Scottie obsessively tries
to give Judy the ultimate makeover, recreating his lost love. Granted, the hosts
of
What Not to Wear have lately gone their separate ways while still
being pals, but still: where are Stacy and Clinton when you
need them?!
 |
Yikes! Not a lifeguard in sight! Thank goodness for Scottie's
quick thinking and Madeleine's natural buoyancy! |
Judy actually
turns out to be a quick study — because she’s really Madeleine! You see, Judy
was Gavin Elster’s mistress, and he coached her to look and act like the real
Madeleine Elster as part of a murder plot. ’Twas the real Mrs. Elster who died
at the mission that fateful day, and Elster’s real purpose for poor Scottie was
to witness the “suicide.” The hell of is that Judy truly
loves Scottie. On top of that, she also has all
the self-esteem of a squashed grape, poor thing, and doesn’t want to spill the murder plot,
what with those pesky laws and such. So Judy’s willing to play Eliza Doolittle
to Scottie’s macabre Henry Higgins. But the jig is up when, post-makeover, Judy
wears a necklace Scottie recognizes as part of Madeleine's
Carlotta Valdes
Collection! Furious at being played for a sucker, Scottie takes Judy to the
mission tower and forces her to confess. With their emotions kicked up, Scottie
and Judy embrace with yearning and regret, but a black shape looms.
Guilt-ridden Judy is so spooked by what turns out to be a curious nun (Judy
must’ve gone to one of those tough parochial schools) that she loses her balance
and falls...and a shattered Scottie loses his Madeleine a second, final time,
looking like he wants to join her.
 |
I love Scottie and Madeleine's big romantic kiss;
it's like From Here to Eternity with clothes on! |
When I first saw
Vertigo in my college years during its 1980s re-release,
I thought it was well worth seeing, but Scottie’s necrophilic mania to recreate
Judy as Madeleine really upset me at the time. I found myself rooting for/angry
at/sorry for Scottie and Judy all at once. Stewart’s portrayal of a man obsessed
is tragic and unnerving; Hitchcock really knew how to tap into his leading man’s
dark side. As if the ghoulishness of Scottie’s romantic obsession and the
malleable Judy’s heartbreaking lack of self-esteem weren’t frustrating enough,
even the department store salespeople and salon personnel in the film go along
with Scottie’s demands. As the salon stylists say, “The gentleman certainly
seems to know what he wants,” and even
they were giving Scottie odd
looks, despite Judy’s anguished protests. Even Vinnie, my husband, aptly noted
that everyone on screen acted as if Scottie was simply having a pedigreed dog
groomed. Kind of brings a new take on Hitchcock’s famous “Actors are like
cattle”
bon mot, doesn’t it?
 |
| Poor Scottie! Even in his dreams, Carlotta gives him the Hairy Eyeball! |
On my first time around, it seemed to me that Hitchcock gave away the mystery's
solution too soon, making the rest of the film anticlimactic. But my
appreciation for
Vertigo grew over the years as I matured and learned
more about life, people, and emotions. By the time Vinnie and I saw the
beautifully restored version of
Vertigo at NYC’s Ziegfeld Theatre in
1996, Judy’s revelatory letter touched my heart and added to the suspense of
waiting for the other shoe to drop for Scottie. There’s no question that
Vertigo has long since become one of my favorite Hitchcock films! (Fun
Fact: Our longtime buddy Jason Simos of Focus Features happened to be waiting
on line for the movie, so we all went together and had a great time, and I was
surprised with a baby shower at my mother-in-law’s home!
Face Two:
The Lighter Side
Make no mistake, I’ve found
Vertigo
progressively more riveting and fascinating over time. I wouldn’t change a frame
of it now, from the powerful performances to Bernard Herrmann’s swooning,
poignant score. That said, in my heart of hearts, I’m still a sucker for, if not a
full-tilt happy ending, then at least a hopeful one. Heck, I’ll even take an
ending that isn’t entirely plausible, if only because I find myself feeling for
the characters. That’s why I’ve sometimes toyed with alternate ways that
Vertigo’s plot could have turned out, at least to satisfy my own private amusement and
“what-if” thoughts about the characters' fates. It’s just that I’ve come to care
so much about those obsessed but strangely lovable crazy kids John “Scottie” Ferguson and Madeleine Elster,
a.k.a. Judy Barton, so the softie in me can’t help wondering how
Vertigo’s plot
would have unfolded with just a few little behavioral tweaks in these
characters. Goshdarnit, where are screenwriters Alec Coppel & Samuel Taylor and
source authors Pierre Boileau & Thomas Narcejac when you really need them?
 |
"Oh, Johnny-O, where's your wry sense of humor? And you wonder
why we broke up our engagement in college!" |
 |
|
|
The most
obvious change, of course, would have been for Judy not to go along with Gavin
Elster’s wife-killing scheme in the first place, but then we’d have no movie. So
let’s say Judy goes along with the San Juan Bautista murder plot up until the
fateful moment when, in Madeleine mode, she skedaddles up to the mission
tower—where poor acrophobic Scottie can’t follow her—and screams when Scottie
can no longer see her, cuing Elster to give his real wife’s body the big
sendoff, making it look like poor possessed Madeleine leapt to her death. Remember how,
before Judy/Madeleine breaks free from Scottie’s embrace to dash for the tower,
he gives her that heartfelt speech about how the past should be forgotten,
they’re together now, and hugging and kissing ensue? What if Judy took a moment
to think it over (by now it’s obvious that she loves Scottie more than that fiend Elster
anyway) and said, “You’re right, Scottie my love, we were meant for each other.
Let’s blow this clambake and start a new life together,” or some
Madeleine-appropriate equivalent? I can see it now: Scottie and his beloved
drive away while that murdering bastard Elster is left holding the bag, no pun
intended. If nuns or tourists should happen upon Elster getting ready to toss
the real Madeleine’s corpse over the side, he might try to squirm out of it by
claiming she slipped and hit her head, breaking her neck. Elster might even try
to sue the mission for damages—unless, of course, an autopsy proved foul play.
How sophisticated were autopsies in 1958, anyway?
 |
| Judy's gonna sit right down and write herself a letter confessing the murder plot—or will she? |
Considering Scottie is still calling our heroine “Madeleine” at this point, I’m
imagining her snuggling up to him as they drive away, cooing, “You can call me
Judy. All my friends do.” Hey, if Scottie can go by his nickname, so can Judy!
 |
"Pop" Leibel" knows all the scuttlebutt from old San Francisco,
plus the first-ever draft of Fifty Shades of Gray, that slyboots! |
Of course, presuming our lovebirds don’t head off at once for someplace where a
suspicious San Francisco death might not be news, Judy would probably have some
explaining to do when Scottie got wind of Mrs. Elster’s untimely demise. Would
Judy tell Scottie the truth, taking a chance on him becoming disillusioned with
her and leaving? Would she try to make it look like Elster had backed her into a
corner, leaving her no choice but to go along with his plan until the last
minute?
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| It's not easy to live a double life (oy, my head...) |
Then again, if Elster were arrested for murder, Judy would surely either be
arrested as an accomplice or be required to testify in court. (In 1958, would
Raymond Burr have been cast as Judy’s attorney?) Would Scottie decide that,
regardless, he loves Judy so much (especially in her Madeleine garb) he’d lie
for her, or run off with her to Rio or some other place where extradition is
more trouble than it’s worth? And what about his faithful, long-suffering gal
pal, Midge Wood? What if she gets tired of being Scottie’s soft place to fall,
finds out about Scottie trading her in for Judy/Madeleine, and decides to make
trouble for the lovebirds? Sounds like a heck of a film noir to me!
On the other hand, Midge might decide her “Johnny-O” isn’t “the only man for
(her)” after all. Come to think of it, we never did find out why Scottie and
Midge broke off their college engagement. What was the real story behind that, I
wonder? Maybe he’s got cold feet, or maybe Midge did. Sometimes it’s easier to
fall in love with someone he can never really have because of his own issues.
Anyway, I want to see Midge find a nice fella on her wavelength who’d give her
his undivided attention. She could stop worrying about Scottie and concentrate
on her career. She could join forces with that engineer who came up with the
cantilevered bra Midge was working on when we first met her. They could design
the lingerie and the factory!
 |
...but there's some perks to the gig!
Stacy & Clinton would approve! |
Let’s say love conquers all plot devices, and Scottie and Judy make a life
together. What about his obsession with “Madeleine”? Would Judy decide blondes
really do have more fun, and stick with the Madeleine look on her own terms and
not just because Scottie’s dotty about it? I can hear the lovebirds now:
“Scottie, sweetie, I’ll wear my hair Madeleine style Monday through Friday and
wear it loose on weekends, okay?”
“Aw, Judy, honey, if the style’s too much work, I’ll learn how to make that
little chignon ’do for ya.”
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| Oh, to be torn 'twixt love and Judy! |
Would Judy gradually bring in more Judyish attire? V-e-r-y gradually,
since Scottie has apparently become more of an expert on feminine fashions and
grooming than most “red-blooded” men of that era would dare admit. Scottie
Ferguson, World’s Earliest Metrosexual! So would Judy sport a tacky bracelet
here, a schmear of fire-engine-red lipstick there, until she’s more like
her old pleasantly trashy self? She could even come home from the beauty salon
one evening with more of a strawberry blonde tinge to her tresses. If Scottie
ever complained that “You’re not the girl I fell in love with,” he’d be right!
Here's a clip of that magnificent 360 shot that shifts from the hotel room to the mission.
And here's a fan-made video of the song "Carlotta Valdez" by Harvey Danger!
