Vertigo (1958)

Hitchcock's sublime Vertigo is being re-released to mark the iconic film’s 50th birthday. Vertigo stands as one of the thrill master's most psychologically dense and twisted tales in which obsession, commitment and dual identities intertwine to create a mesmerising story of tainted love. Bitter emotion and a complex narrative replace Hitchcock’s usual dramatic anxiety. This creates an atmospheric tension that Hollywood can only dream of replicating today. The absence of virtually any humour makes the relentlessness of Scotty's fated obsession even more dark and harrowing.

John ‘Scotty’ Ferguson (James Stewart) is a San Francisco detective who develops acrophobia (fear of heights) after watching a man fall to his death during a botched police chase. After resigning gracefully, he is contacted by an old college friend who offers him an unusual job. Scotty is asked to follow his friend's wife Madeline Elster (Kim Novak), who has apparently been possessed by the spirit of a 19th-century ancestor.

Scotty's debilitating vertigo stops him from preventing Madeline's clock tower suicide. Understandable in the circumstances, he has a nervous breakdown. Whilst recovering he meets Judy Barton, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Madeline. With the plot well and truly thickened, the story is then whipped into a complete frenzy as Scotty attempts to recreate the image of his lost love.

These days it seems love stories have to be given some sort of aberrant angle in order to maintain credibility, but Vertigo was released when the majority of screen relationships were unashamedly conventional. Stewart's Scotty falls in love with a fantasy incarnated by Novak's mysterious siren. The ex-cop is in love with a woman he believes to be the ghostly spirit of an abandoned and disconsolate madwoman. Always conscious of his increasingly unhinged nature, Scotty simply doesn't care because he is prepared to go wherever the mania takes him.

Hitchcock fans will delight in this new restoration; as an added bonus, Bernard Herrmann’s hypnotic cello-heavy score has been digitised and re-recorded for the occasion. A crisp new musical element that includes sounds and effects not even heard during the original 1958 release is here for all to enjoy.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore and Harry Jones
Certificate: PG
Runtime: 128 minutes (approx.)
Special Features: Feature commentary; Obsessed with Vertigo: New Life for Hitchcock’s Masterpiece; Production notes; Cast and Filmmakers; Trailers
Release date: 20 October 2008

Adrian McBreen