Alfred Hitchcock’s classic, Vertigo, is sure to keep you wide-eyed and on the edge of your seat. It’s not a fast-paced gory thriller like so many horror films today. Instead, it’s Hitchcock’s signature style — suspenseful and just plain eerie. Almost like The X-Files — only without the aliens.
After watching a fellow officer fall from a building to his death, detective John Ferguson (James Stewart) — known as Scottie by his friends — retires from the force with a debilitating fear of heights, which gives him a bizarre, mind-numbing vertigo any time he’s too high off the ground.
But shortly after he returns to normal life, Scottie gets a call from an old college friend, who’s concerned about his wife. It seems, Scottie’s friend explains, that she’s possessed by someone long dead — and he fears it might kill her. Scottie reluctantly agrees to follow his friend’s beautiful wife, Madeline (Kim Novak), and he watches as, day after day, she follows the same path. And it seems that Scottie’s friend may be right. One day, after Madeline throws herself into the San Francisco Bay, Scottie rescues her, and the two meet face-to-face for the first time. Scottie falls more and more in love with Madeline — and becomes obsessed with trying to keep her from hurting herself.
When Madeline slips out of his reach one day and kills herself, Scottie is heartbroken to the point of needing to be hospitalized. After he finally recovers, though, he meets another woman who reminds him of the women he fell in love with — and his obsession becomes stronger than ever.
Vertigo is a fantastically creepy film. Stewart does an excellent job of gradually transforming his character from a mild-mannered detective to a crazed man, possessed by the memory of his lost love. There are, of course, a few parts that are somewhat late-50s cheesy — and I still haven’t quite figured out the point of Scottie’s friend and former fiancée, Midge — but it’s not enough to ruin the movie at all.
In fact, this movie is so well-done that it may give you a little vertigo of your own. You’ll be so into the story that you’ll lose all sense of reality. You’ll forget where you are. You’ll lose all track of time. And when it’s over, you just may find yourself in a bit of a haze…
Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
Kristin Dreyer Kramer has been writing in some form or another (usually when she was supposed to be doing something else) since the ripe old age of ten—when she, her cousin, and their two Cabbage Patch Dolls formed the Poo Authors’ Club. After a short career in advertising, Kristin got sick of always saying nice things about stuff that didn’t deserve it—so now she spends her days criticizing things, and she’s much happier for it.
Since creating NightsAndWeekends.com in February of 2002, Kristin has spent her life surrounded by piles and piles of books and movies—so many that her office has become a kind of entertainment obstacle course.
As if her writing and editing responsibilities for N&W.com weren’t enough to keep her out of trouble, Kristin also hosts a number of weekly radio shows: Reel Discovery, Shelf Discovery, and On the Marquee. She’s also a proud member of the Broadcast Film Critics Association (CriticsChoice.com), the Central Ohio Film Critics Association (COFCA.org), the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS.org), and the Women Film Critics Circle (WFCC.Wordpress.com).
Kristin lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Paul, and their daughter, Anna. She welcomes questions, comments, and fan mail at kdk@nightsandweekends.com.
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