Vertigo for Life

by guest contributor Dan Auiler

A month of Vertigo is light sentence. Most of us who encounter this film end up serving life sentences. Our lives, our thoughts become trapped in the vortex of the strong currents this film produces. Vertigo's meaning and importance in film have become so varied and vital that choosing one tendril spinning out from one of John Whitney's Lissajous diagrams is challenging - but keeping that line of thought from swirling back into the film's center and tossing you out on some other surprising shore is just about impossible.

The film has become something I can seldom approach head-on, in a straight line. For example, the original idea for this blog post was to look at Vertigo and the films of Chris Marker. But even on the way to introducing the idea, we encounter John Whitney. John Whitney was the groundbreaking computer animation filmmaker who not only invented computer controlled animation, but hand-machined the devices himself out of surplus Air Force engines. It was on one of these devices that Whitney created the opening spiral designs that Saul Bass used for the title sequence.



And now, aiming still at Chris Marker, detoured out of essence to a brief John Whitney nod, we encounter another 20th century giant, Saul Bass. The very look of the last hundred years, let alone the way movies open, have been impacted by the vision and design abilities of Saul Bass.

Selecting Saul Bass, John Whitney - these are obvious choices today. In 1957, these guys were not household names even to filmmakers. One of Hitchcock's remarkable abilities was his choice in collaborators. Other posts this month have outlined the other key components of the design team for Vertigo. Bernard Herrmann, Edith Head, Samuel Taylor - again, hindsight provokes us to ask how the film could fail.

La Jetee (1962)

Now I'm far from Chris Marker. But I thought you would appreciate the detour. Marker has also been a life-long devotee of Vertigo. His break-out short film La Jetee references the film's famous tree sequence; La Jetee is a further examination of the aspects of time, obsession and our movable points in time. (here is the complete text to La Jetee: La Jetee by Chris Marker)

Marker, in a later work of opposite dimensions, San Soleil, tours San Francisco and Vertigo's film locations, marking in film at least the first of the pilgrims to visit Lombard Street, Fort Point, the Legion of Honor art museum, San Juan Bautista. Vertigo aficionados feel compelled to make this pilgrimage. It was my first trip after college. I'm not sure why this was so vital - but I am not alone. (There are several paid tours of the film sites available)
 

Filmmaker Chris Marker

Vertigo and its production history led me to discover Marker. His reference to the film in his own was the starting point. Now I'm fascinated by his total mess-with-your-head understanding (or non-understanding) of time. The English version of San Soleil begins with these lines from TX Eliot's Ash Wednesday:

"Because I know that time is always time
and place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
and only for one place."

What then is the time and place for Vertigo? This is a profound question in the structure of the film. It is an even more profound question for us, the film's fans.

What is the time and place of this film in our lives? For me, it has been the gateway, the worm hole, the central vortex around which all of Hitchcock's films and subsequently my own psychic life turn.
 
Use Vertigo as a starting point and then lose yourself as a wanderer. My latest encounter on the Vertigo trail is the three-part video essay curated here at the Museum of Moving Image. This is accessible but heady stuff.

There are other "better" films even in the Hitchcock canon, but Vertigo is perhaps the most profound pop film. Everyone chooses which films lie closest to their own heart, their own story. Vertigo is that film for me.

~

Dan Auiler is the best-selling author of Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic (St. Martin's Press 1998, Kindle 2011) and Hitchcock's Notebooks (HarperCollins 1999). In addition to his writing, he has taught for more than 20 years in the Los Angeles area. 

Dan is considered one of the foremost authorities on Alfred Hitchcock and has made appearances on CNN and other major networks as an expert on Hitchcock, Billy Wilder and general film history.

It was after reading Dan's painstakingly researched and thoroughly insightful book on Vertigo that The Lady Eve was inspired to undertake A Month of VERTIGO. Dan's blog is Vertigo Falls.

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Vertigo: Alfred Hitchcock's Edifice to Obsession

a video blog by guest contributor Brandon Kyle Goco

Brandon Goco, guest host of Turner Classic Movies’ monthly podcast series for October 2011, is both a film student and a movie fanatic. He has penned well over a hundred individual blogs for the TCM Classic Film Union, has his own blog, Brandon Kyle the Cinephile, and has only recently taken up video blogging. At the age of 20, Brandon is currently attending a California State University, majoring in film studies and working part-time as the production coordinator and general manager for the university’s local television station. He has dreams of becoming a film director or film preservationist some day.

Brandon on Vertigo (he recommends his video be viewed in 720p):

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James Stewart: A Walk on the Dark Side

by guest contributor Classicfilmboy

Alfred Hitchcock had a knack for bringing out the worst in the best of actors.

And I mean that as a compliment. He could take likable leading men, cast them as dark characters and draw great performances. Think of Cary Grant’s Johnnie in Suspicion (before the studio re-edited the ending), Joseph Cotton’s Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt and Robert Walker’s Bruno in Strangers on a Train.

Perhaps the best example of this was how Hitchcock used James Stewart, whose image was the “aw shucks” guy next door. As Hitchcock biographer Patrick McGilligan suggests, his heroes began to deepen with Grant and then with Stewart, and those films deepened as a result.

But as much as I love Grant, he has a particular on-screen persona that became part of almost every performance he gave starting in the late 1940s. Meanwhile, as Stewart aged, he pushed away from his all-American persona and began playing dark and conflicted men, looking less and less like the characters audiences loved in the 1930s and early 1940s. Frank Capra tapped into Stewart’s dark side in 1946’s It's a Wonderful Life, with the actor playing a man who is contemplating suicide, forced to stay and work where he never wanted to and bitter that he never had the opportunities that others enjoyed. According to McGilligan, Stewart told Lionel Barrymore that his air force experience during World War II made him question acting, resulting in Stewart searching for stronger parts.

Rope (1948)

It makes sense that Hitchcock would pick up on Stewart’s newfound attitudes. Yet, oddly enough, Stewart’s first film with Hitchcock was 1948’s Rope, in which Stewart is very much playing off his good-guy persona. Stewart does his usual fine job, but both he and Hitchcock learned from this for their future collaborations.

But first came some fine roles that would eventually comprise a decade of marvelous work from Stewart, starting with 1950’s Harvey. As the gentle Elwood P. Dowd, Stewart plays someone who’s not in touch with the rest of society, which in itself can get you labeled as mentally disturbed even if that’s not the case. Stewart mines the dark comedy in playing a man who would rather be friends with a large imaginary rabbit that with any humans, and it takes a special actor to make this character resonate rather than becoming too cute or too disturbing.

Stewart’s early 1950s westerns also brought out a toughness in character. Just look at The Naked Spur, with Stewart as a bounty hunter in a tale that predates some of John Wayne’s more conflicted Western characters.  

Rear Window (1954)

Stewart’s second pairing with Hitchcock is 1954’s Rear Window which is my favorite Hitchcock film of the 1950s. It’s rare to think of Stewart as having a sexuality on screen, yet here Hitchcock fully taps into it with Stewart’s character, Jeff, having an open affair with Grace Kelly. It’s rather shocking to see Mr. All-American, in a leg cast and wheelchair, clearly in lust with the lovely Ms. Kelly. Yet it works, bringing Stewart down to our level. Yes, he’s still the hero, but he also has desires and doubts like the rest of us. The fact that our hero likes to spy on all of his neighbors adds an unsettling dimension to that character, because the audience is right there with him, knowing it’s wrong but unable to do anything but indulge.

How better than to have your audience identify with a peeping Tom than have that man played by Stewart. He’s a flawed man, and one that Hitchcock and Stewart brilliantly explore together.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

It’s worth noting that Stewart was cast before screenwriter John Michael Hayes started his work, so the role was tailored to Stewart.

Stewart and Hitchcock were both friendly and business-like to each other. More importantly, they understood each other. Stewart re-teams with Hitchcock a third time in The Man Who Knew Too Much, although in the first half of the movie Stewart relies on his aw-shucks persona too much. It isn’t until the latter stages when Stewart’s Ben MacKenna is desperate to save his child.

But Hitchcock fully taps into the dark side of Stewart in Vertigo, their fourth film together. Stewart’s Scottie may be afraid of heights, but that’s the least of his problems in light of his sexual obsession over Kim Novak.

R.D. Finch does an outstanding job of discussing Stewart in his Vertigo post from earlier this month during The Lady Eve’s Vertigo event, and there’s no need to repeat what he wrote. What’s worth noting is the unsettling, frightening darkness to Stewart’s character. 

 Perhaps this is why the film wasn’t much of a success when it was released. In Rope, Rear Window and The Man Who Knew Too Much, Stewart eventually overcomes his weaknesses, although with some struggle. In Vertigo, the weaknesses are debilitating, and maybe that’s what audiences simply don’t want to see in Stewart or accept from one of his characters.

But Scottie should be a disorienting figure in a film where dizziness is both literal and figurative. For me, Stewart’s casting is genius, because it adds another level of disorientation. I doubt another actor could have carried this off. Sure, others may have given strong performances, but Hitchcock and Stewart knew what they were doing. It’s that extra push, the expected screen persona that’s built into the audience mindset before the film begins that ultimately shocks them in the end. 

 

 As a result, Vertigo is an enduring, disturbing tale. Over four films, Hitchcock and Stewart worked well together, and the great director elicited from Stewart some of his best work, perhaps none as disturbing as Scottie.

 

~

Brian, aka Classicfilmboy, developed a love of classic films at a young age with the annual airing of The Wizard of Oz on CBS (which he partially blames for his tornado phobia). As a kid growing up in a small Midwestern town, access to classic films was limited, which made their mystique even more enticing. Brian later spent 10 years as a film reviewer and now writes Classicfilmboy.com, although he wishes he could devote more time to his blog. He specializes in pre-1970 film history, and for fun he teaches noncredit film appreciation classes at his local community college in suburban Chicago.

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VERTIGO, the Bit Players

by guest contributor Allen Hefner

Kim Novak with Tom Helmore in Vertigo

A movie as incredible as Vertigo (1958) is a collaboration of many parts.  Even an actor as talented as James Stewart can’t carry a film of this complexity by himself.  The locations, scenery, costumes, set decoration, lighting, music, bit parts and even the cars are important to make any film a success. 

I enjoy looking at the Bit Parts in a movie…seeing where the Bit Actors came from and where they went after a successful movie.  Most of them didn’t get paid much, but the good ones put their whole heart and soul into each role, whether it was a small part in a television western or an opportunity to supply an important plot element in a movie like Vertigo.

Let’s look at some of the larger Bit Parts in Vertigo.  I have listed them in order of the number of roles they have played during their career. 

 

Ellen Corby and James Stewart

Ellen Corby (1911 – 1999)  238 titles are listed on IMDb for Ellen.  She worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo as the McKittrick Hotel manager, and also in several of his TV shows.  Her first movie was Rafter Romance (1933) starring Ginger Rogers, released just before Rogers teamed up with Fred Astaire in Flying Down to Rio the same year.

Corby’s next film was Sons of the Desert (1933) starring Laurel and Hardy.  She would make two other L&H films, Babes in Toyland (1934) and Swiss Miss (1938).  Her first pairing with James Stewart was in a little film called It’s a Wonderful Life (1946).  She plays a Bailey Savings and Loan customer who withdraws just $17.50 during the run.  Stewart didn’t expect her to say that small amount, so he kissed her!  I guess Frank Capra could get as much out of his actors as Hitchcock.

Most of Corby’s roles through the 1940s were uncredited, but she continued to get better and better parts.  Look for her in Mighty Joe Young (1949) the King Kong send-up, The Gunfighter (1950) with Gregory Peck, Angels in the Outfield (1951) with Janet Leigh, Sabrina (1954) with Humphrey Bogart, and Night Passage (1957) again with James Stewart…all before Vertigo, and all great films.

Corby’s television career is another long story, but it took her from being Mother Lurch in “The Addams Family” to Esther Walton on “The Waltons,” a role she played in the series and many of the Walton’s specials.

Henry Jones (1912 – 1999), shown at right, has 202 titles listed and is certainly one of the most recognizable Bit Actors in cinema.  He was born in Philadelphia, so I like him even more.  His first film was This is the Army (1943) starring George Murphy and featuring Ronald Reagan. 

Jones moved straightaway into television in 1950, and his second appearance on TV was with George Burns and Gracie Allen.  In the early days, television was considered a step down from acting on film, just as 50 years earlier acting on film was less desirable than being on Broadway.  Television appearances in the early days were much more frequent than movies, so all those kids (myself included) who were glued to the TV set until the next Saturday matinee at the local theatre would have the faces of those actors and actresses burned into their subconscious, only to resurface 50 years later and be written about on the Internet.

Jones continued making movies during his television work.  In 1957 look for him in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? with Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield, and then in 3:10 to Yuma starring Glenn Ford, and of course in 1958 as the blue-suited coroner in Vertigo. 

In 1969 we see Henry in Support Your Local Sheriff! with James Garner, and as a bicycle salesman in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with of course, Paul Newman and Robert Redford.  Later in his career he continues mostly on TV, but look for him in these great films –Nine to Five (1980), Deathtrap (1982), Dick Tracy (1990), and his final film The Grifters (1990).

Barbara Bel Geddes and Raymond Bailey

Raymond Bailey (1904 – 1980) is best known as Milburn Drysdale on “The Beverly Hillbillies.”  However, that came near the end of his career of 146 titles that started in 1939.  His first dozen years on the big screen went largely uncredited.

Television again allowed Bailey to find good work as an actor, but it wasn’t until the 1960s that he had a regular role in “My Sister Eileen,” a show I have never seen. 

In the movies he has quite a long list, but many are forgettable films with second tier stars like Jock Mahoney, Jeff Chandler, and Tab Hunter.  He appeared in Band of Angels (1957) which came near the end of Clark Gable’s career.

1958 may have been his finest film year, with appearances in Darby’s Rangers, Lafayette Escadrille, Vertigo (a small role as Scottie’s doctor), No Time for Sergeants, The Lineup, King Creole and I Want to Live!  Quite a year for him, and for us.

Then, more TV, more TV, and in 1960 The Gallant Hours starring James Cagney and From the Terrace with Paul Newman…and more TV.  Finally, Jed Clampett makes him a famous Beverly Hills banker and the rest is history.  His final films were Herbie Rides Again (1974) and The Strongest Man in the World (1975).

James Stewart and Lee Patrick

Lee Patrick (1901 – 1982) was the lady who is mistaken for Madeleine at her car.  Her role in Vertigo was small, but it helped fill in some questions in Scottie’s mind.  Of course to me, Lee Patrick will always be Henrietta Topper of the television series “Topper” starring Leo G. Carroll as Cosmo Topper.

Lee has 104 titles listed on IMDb starting in 1929.  Her first major motion picture, though not a starring role, was as Effie in the Bogart classic The Maltese Falcon (1941).  In a Hitchcockian (is that a word?) twist, her final film was The Black Bird (1975) and she played the same part.  I am sure that was a forgettable movie, where George Segal plays Sam Spade’s son, still looking for the elusive Falcon.

In between those films you can catch her in Now, Voyager (1942), George Washington Slept Here (1942), A Night to Remember (1942), Jitterbugs (a not so great Laurel and Hardy film in 1943), Mildred Pierce (1945), Vertigo and Auntie Mame in 1958, The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (1964), and a bunch of television.

Tom Helmore with James Stewart

Tom Helmore (1904 – 1995)  Even though Gavin Elster (the real Madeleine’s husband) was a focal point of the mystery in Vertigo, I must include Tom Helmore as a Bit Player in a supporting role.  He really doesn’t have much screen time.  But he has 72 titles on IMDb.  And he appears in two earlier Hitchcock movies, The Ring (a silent film from 1927) and Secret Agent (1936) with John Gielgud.

There’s not much to write about in his other work.  Of note is an appearance in The Tender Trap (1955) with Frank Sinatra, The Time Machine (1960) with Rod Taylor, plus some good television work.  The last movie he worked in was Flipper’s New Adventure (1964).

 

Konstantin Shayne (1888 – 1974), shown at right, certainly sounds like a Russian cowboy.  Shayne played Pop Leibel, the bookstore owner who fills in the missing story about Carlotta Valdes.  Again, a very small part but integral to understanding the plot. 

Shayne has 49 titles listed on IMDb, starting in 1938.  His performances of note were in None But the Lonely Heart (1944), The Stranger (1946) and The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).  You can also see him in small parts in a Bulldog Drummond film and in The Falcon in Hollywood (1944).  He appeared quite a few times on TV in the 1950s, and his final movie was Joy in the Morning (1965) starring Richard Chamberlain.

Margaret Brayton and Kim Novak

Margaret Brayton (1907 – 1992) played the saleswoman in the dress shop that Scottie and Judy went to.  While it may not seem like it was important to have this scene in Vertigo, it does serve to highlight the extent of Scotty’s obsession with turning Judy into Madeleine.  

She has 48 titles on IMDb from 1934 to 1959, mostly uncredited, with maybe five television appearances.  Another of her other well-known films was Who Done It? (1942) with Abbott and Costello.

Molly Dodd (1921 – 1981) was the beautician who also worked over Judy to recreate Madeleine.  I loved it when she told Scottie that she knew what HE wanted, as though everyone in San Francisco was tired of his fantasy.  Her 40 titles on IMDb include only four movies and Vertigo was her first.

Molly Dodd and James Stewart

Look for Molly in many of the sitcoms in the 1960s.  In 1976 she was also in a few episodes of “The Waltons” with Ellen Corby.  Her last movie was Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978).

And finally, there are the cars…Scottie’s 1956 DeSoto Firedome, Madeleine’s 1957 Jaguar Mk VIII, and Midge’s (Barbara Bel Geddes) 1956 Karmann Ghia.  I have written before about cars in cinema and I am sure there are volumes available on the topic. 

'Madeleine' in her 1957 Jaguar Mk VIII

The two main cars in Vertigo are more than obvious as plot vehicles  (Sorry!  I couldn’t resist).  They are as distinctive as the characters they belong to.  It was important for the cars to be instantly recognizable to avoid confusion in the film.  While Scotty is following Madeleine, you need to be able to pick out her car in the traffic.  You see it later at his apartment, and again after Madeleine’s staged death in the scene with Lee Patrick. 

It is also interesting that the three cars match their owner’s personalities perfectly.  I can see each one of them picking out their car at the dealership.  Of course, it wasn’t the Kim Novak Madeleine who bought the Jag, but it would fit the real Madeleine’s station in society.  Scottie would be matter-of-fact in his purchase, buying a car big enough for his needs, with a powerful V8.  And Midge would have chosen her Ghia because it was so cute!

'Midge' in her 1956 Karmann Ghia

Hitchcock thought of everything, right down to the cars.  His penchant for perfection is showcased in Vertigo and its excellent cast of Bit Actors.  And I’m sure you’ll agree that these parts helped make Vertigo the great classic film it is.

Many thanks to Eve for hosting this month long tribute, and to all the other writers who have put so much effort into the project.  I hope you enjoy every entry.  And please stop by my Bit Part Actors blog for more great profiles.

~

Allen Hefner of Bit Part Actors, the blog he launched in May 2010, is from Pennsylvania and has been interested in movies from an early age. He recalls attending Saturday matinees at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside, PA, every Saturday of his youth, “when 50 cents bought you a two reeler (usually The Three Stooges or Laurel & Hardy), a few cartoons and a feature film.” Allen is a member of the famed Laurel & Hardy fan organization, The Sons of the Desert, and has, over the years, met and enjoyed the company of many film buffs and performers of days gone by including Margaret Hamilton, William Windom, Penny Singleton and others - as well as Stan Laurel's daughter, Lois, and Sons of the Desert founder (and cartoonist) Al Kilgore.

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Hitchcock Biographer Patrick McGilligan Discusses VERTIGO with John Greco

by guest contributor John Greco

John Greco of Twenty Four Frames recently interviewed award-winning biographer Patrick McGilligan, author of Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (Harper Collins, 2004). The focus of their dialogue was the director's mysterious and magnificent Vertigo.

John Greco (JG): Where does Vertigo fall within your pantheon of Hitchcock films and films in general?

Patrick McGilligan (PM): Honestly, I admire Vertigo more than I adore it but perhaps the reason for that is I am more inclined towards Hitchcock’s dark comedies with their playful humor -with major exceptions, I should say. Also, I have had the unfortunate experience, in recent years, of showing this film to undergraduates while teaching university film courses and have heard audible snickering in the audience during certain scenes, which isn’t true when you screen most of Hitchcock’s other accepted masterpieces. I think that is because there are some things about the film that can only be accepted by auteurists (the fact, for example, that it takes Scottie so long to recognize that Judy is/was Madeleine); you could say the same thing about the special effects for The Birds – brilliant then, somewhat dated now. And yet we fear the remake!

JG: How important was shooting the film in San Francisco to the film and Hitchcock?

.

Judy and Scottie and San Francisco's Palace of Fine Arts

PM: San Francisco and the Bay area became increasingly important to Hitchcock after he bought a house up there during World War II and began commuting up on many weekends. It was part of his “Americanization,” though obviously, considering his accent and usual costume, never a completed process. The romance with the Bay Area really began with Shadow of a Doubt, which was a Hitchcock original tailored for that area, and it was a great pleasure for the director to imagine or (in the cases of Vertigo and The Birds) re-imagine European stories in his veritable backyard. Filming in the Bay Area, or even living there on weekends, was radically independent for Hollywood in the 1940s. Incidentally, I think this penchant is one of the things that makes Hitchcock a very intimate, personal director as well as a universal one. They now give Vertigo tours of San Francisco, I’m sure you know.

JG:  Vertigo seems to have been a very personal film for Hitchcock. Scottie's obsession with the makeover of Judy into Madeline mirrors to an extent Hitchcock's own obsession with the making over of some of his leading ladies into his own vision of the icy blonde Hitchcockian ideal. Tippi Hedren, for example - true?

An iconic twist

PM: I don’t really buy this notion except very generally. Hitchcock’s career is full of different types of women, and not all the blondes are icy – Grace Kelly really isn’t, either in Rear Window or To Catch a Thief. I think it is a cliché about Hitchcock that is sometimes true and that he helped to promulgate as part of his self-publicity. At the same time, it is also true that, especially in the early days of the silent cinema, particularly in America, the blonde heroine was a fixture – the Mary Pickford type, whose looks photographed dramatically in black and white. Hitchcock was very aware of that tradition. Yet it is also true that Hitchcock liked to make over his leading ladies, picking out their costumes, consulting on their hair-dos, offering behavioral tips for scenes. So, I guess it is fair to say that Scottie’s make-over of Judy in Vertigo echoes (or prefigures) Hitchcock’s make- over of Tippi Hedren for The Birds, as long as it is understood that sometimes the make-overs had little to do with the icy blonde cliché, or that he did the same thing more subtly, often, with the male characters and actors.

JG: Vera Miles was originally set to play Madeleine/Judy but due to delays in pre-production and her eventual pregnancy she was replaced by Kim Novak. Any thoughts of how Ms. Miles would have been in the dual role?

PM: Originally I think the part was tailored for Miles. Hitchcock had a yen for Miles and really tried to elevate her to a ‘name’ stardom. But Miles couldn’t play the part because of her pregnancy, and gradually the role was reworked, the script rewritten, for another type of actress, Kim Novak. James Stewart was really in favor of Novak, importantly, and so was Lew Wasserman. She really gives a stellar performance, although you almost can sense her squirming under Hitchcock’s not entirely satisfied direction. I think that gives the film a piquancy that wouldn’t have been there with Vera Miles, but it’s almost not fair to speculate. Ultimately Vera Miles would have played it differently, Hitchcock would have directed her differently, and the script would have been written differently.

JG: Kim Novak has been criticized over the years as being too lightweight an actress for the role. I, for one, think her lack of depth, her innocence, if you will, added a dimension that would have been missing with a more seriously trained actress. Does she hurt the film as some have said?

Mysterious 'Madeleine Elster'

PM: I agree with you that Kim Novak adds rather than subtracts to the film. I’d say the first requisite for the character she plays is ‘mysteriousness.’ Neither Judy nor Madeleine is intended to have any depth, per se. For the ordinary moviegoer Novak is convincing and beguiling. For the serious moviegoer she is more: she overcomes all prejudices against her limitations while adding to the ‘subtext’ of the film. Hitchcock’s ability to mold the actress, to cast a spell over her, is part of the grand achievement of the film.

JG: Hitchcock's films were always filled with eroticism. The 39 Steps with the implications of the two handcuffed together, the kissing scene in Notorious, the afternoon tryst in Psycho, to name a few. In Vertigo it is implied, after Scottie saved Madeleine from drowning and took her back to his apartment, that she is naked (under the sheets), suggesting he most likely undressed her. Was Hitchcock playing out personal fantasies or fulfilling a need missing in his life?

Gavin Elster and 'Madeleine' at Ernies

PM: I certainly think that all the great directors play out their personal fantasies as well as fulfill needs missing in their personal lives. That is true of Hitchcock’s preoccupation with erotic symbolism, sexy actresses undressing before the camera, double entendre dialogue, and so on. At the same time it was part of his sophistication as well as his identification with his audience, that Hitchcock understood the ramifications of scenes that sometimes slipped by the censors, and that this quality in his films was enormously appealing and subversive to critics as well as ordinary moviegoers. One of the reasons the Hitchcockian sensibility can’t really be replicated by other filmmakers (despite many valiant efforts) is that it has so many components that are organic with him – his personality, his character, his life story - and yet work as part of his entertainment formula. The eroticization of scenes belongs to Hitchcock as much as the Macguffin or “the wrong man.”

JG: Scottie is fanatical in transforming Judy into the image of the dead Madeleine, he is a man possessed. I found this to be one of James Stewart's most intense acting performances, maybe with the exception of some of his roles in Anthony Mann's westerns, his most extreme. He actually becomes less likeable as the film progresses.

"...a resurrection parable."

PM: I think Scottie becomes pitiful as well as pitiable, which may be traced to Hitchcock’s Catholicism. (The whole story is a resurrection parable.) Stewart was a brave actor, willing to try anything and risk falling flat, and he had remarkable close collaborations with several of Hollywood’s top directors – Capra, Ford, Mann, besides Hitchcock. But he and Hitchcock had more of a true friendship and partnership; they were actual business partners on the four films they made together. When an actor lets himself go emotionally like Stewart does in Vertigo, or in the Anthony Mann films you mention – even It’s a Wonderful Life – apart from his considerable talent it shows his trust in the director.

JG: Vertigo was a critical and commercial failure at the time of its original release. Was the film too complex for audiences of the day to appreciate or was there another reason? It certainly has gained in stature in later years.

PM: Who knows? It could have been doomed by the advertising or release pattern. It may have done well overseas. It was certainly embraced by the French. It might be too strong to call it a failure – maybe a disappointment. I know that Hitchcock found fault with the film, even with James Stewart, not his performance, but with hindsight the director thought Stewart might not have had the necessary romantic appeal. But it’s a curious love story after all, and not the usual mystery or suspense, so American audiences in the 1950s may have been left scratching their heads. And much of what Hitchcock critics and scholars treasure about it – all the embedded auteurism – wouldn’t have been obvious to those moviegoers. I’m not sure it is obvious to audiences today. After all, while Vertigo wins over the critics and scholars, other Hitchcock films like Rear Window, North by Northwest or Psycho are more reliable as crowd pleasers.

Biographer Patrick McGilligan

 ~

Guest author John Greco has entertained a lifelong fascination with cinema and photography and has been blogging on classic film for about 3½ years at Twenty Four Frames. He recently launched another blog featuring his own photography (johngrecophotograpy.com). Pat McGilligan’s Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director, was published in July. Click here for John’s interview with the author regarding this most recent biography.

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An Inconsequential Yarn

by guest contributor Steven DeRosa

“They say every true San Franciscan has one foot on a hill and the other in the past.”—Kate in Samuel Taylor’s The Pleasure of His Company

Since Vertigo is a film that garners such personal reactions, I wanted to begin this piece on something of a personal note. It’s not a matter of whether one likes the film or doesn’t.  For those who truly connect with Vertigo, it’s because it resonates with something inside of them. I was in high school when I saw Vertigo for the first time and the build up to seeing it was intense. It was only a few months before that I had begun to seriously study the master’s work, having been introduced to The Lodger, The 39 Steps, Sabotage, Notorious, Rear Window, and North by Northwest. Having become hooked on Hitchcock through that line up in school, I began my own exploration of every Hitchcock film I could get my hands on and by reading the corresponding chapter from Donald Spoto’s The Art of Alfred Hitchcock afterward. Then I’d re-watch the film over again, etc.

Given the laudatory opening paragraphs on Vertigo in Spoto’s chapter, as well as its massive size in relation to chapters on other films, I knew to expect something very special. When I finally did see Vertigo, I was swept away by its beauty, its movement, the emotional punch it delivered, and by its haunting images and score. Over the next five years or so, I would watch it once a month—yes, I was that obsessed (I would perform the same monthly ritual with Rear Window and North by Northwest as well). To this day, I still get goose bumps during certain sequences, and on occasion well up by the final moments of the film.

After a few years of immersing myself in my own Hitchcock education, I had become increasingly curious about his collaborators, particularly his screenwriters. I was of course familiar with the countless statements Hitchcock made about how for him the most creative part of the filmmaking process was the writing and preparation stage, and that the actual process of shooting the picture was boring. Statements like this fed my curiosity to know how much of an impact his writers had on the finished films. What did they bring to the table? What contributions did they make beyond the dialogue? I found myself becoming more and more fascinated by these writers who had sat beside Hitchcock, not merely observing him create and taking down dictation, but who’d earned a seat in the inner sanctum and engaged with him in creating these films.

Screenwriter Samuel Taylor

Of the Hitchcock screenwriters of the 1950s and 1960s, Samuel Taylor was not the most prolific. Although he directed a film after having written only two screenplays, Taylor did not adapt quite as well to the Hollywood lifestyle as say John Michael Hayes, Ernest Lehman, or even Joseph Stefano. Each of these writers found their niche—Hayes as adapter of “difficult” material, Lehman as adapter of road-show musicals, and Stefano brought his special touch to the small screen as principal writer for The Outer Limits. Sam Taylor however was more at home writing plays in Maine and then seeing them through to production on the New York stage. Yet, in spite of a short list of screenwriting credits in comparison to say Lehman or Hayes, Taylor played a significant role in shaping and refining Hitchcock’s most dreamlike film.

An Unconventional Screenplay

By conventional screenwriting standards, the screenplay for Vertigo could be regarded as a failure. It contains so many “no-nos,” cheats, and just plain writing crutches that most writers would never attempt to get away with all in the same script—flashbacks, a dream sequence, and a lengthy voiceover where a character composes a letter on screen in order to explain much of the plot. But these devices, to name just a few, are exactly what make Vertigo work. The illusory nature of the movie required an unconventional script.

By the end of 1956, Hitchcock had already been through three writers in adapting the Boileau and Narcejac novel D’Entre les Morts. Playwright Maxwell Anderson had a go at a first draft which Hitchcock found lacking in mood, direction and structure. Hitchcock then turned to his old friend Angus MacPhail who knocked out a very rough outline—what today might be called a step-sheet. Structurally, the MacPhail outline closely resembles the finished film and Hitchcock hoped he would be up to the task of roughing out a construction or treatment from which Anderson would write a second draft. However, MacPhail opted to bow out gracefully. Hitchcock then turned to Paramount contract writer Alec Coppel, who had provided the text for one of the threatening notes used in To Catch a Thief when a re-take was needed after principal photography. Coppel worked closely with Hitchcock in fashioning a screenplay that followed MacPhail’s structure and now included most of the visual set pieces that Hitchcock envisioned for the film.

With Coppel’s draft, Hitchcock now had a mysterious, moody love story with elements of the supernatural, and a big twist to be revealed in the final scene—the supernatural elements were merely a hoax conceived to cover up a murder. Hitchcock returned to Anderson to finesse the dialogue and clarify the characters’ motivations, but the writer turned him down. As was custom when he needed a new writer, Hitchcock reached out to his go-to agents, one of which was Kay Brown, who on learning the film was to be set in San Francisco immediately suggested her client Samuel Taylor.  

Hitchcock’s New Writer

Although born in Chicago, Samuel Taylor grew up in San Francisco and attended the University of California, Berkeley, so he was already quite familiar with both the flavor and history of the City by the Bay. In fact, at the time Kay Brown suggested Taylor to Hitchcock, he was busy writing his play The Pleasure of His Company which was also set in San Francisco. No doubt, this appealed to Hitchcock who longed to film the city for the big screen (an early treatment for I Confess and an aborted adaptation of David Duncan’s The Bramble Bush had both been set in and around San Francisco).

Taylor was sent the Coppel script and Hitchcock’s notes and after some initial uncertainty, he accepted the assignment and met with the director. “When I read the screenplay that had been written, I was quite confused because I couldn’t follow it at all,” recalled Taylor. “When I saw Hitchcock after I read the script, I knew what the problem was. I said to him, ‘It’s a matter of finding the reality and humanity for these people. You haven’t got anybody in this story who is a human being—nobody at all. They’re all cut-out cardboard figures.’”

This was exactly what Hitchcock wanted and needed to hear. When writing for Hitchcock, you were hired because you brought something to the table that Hitchcock, as producer, felt the project needed. In the case of Vertigo, it was the emotional story and characters that needed work at this point. Taylor told Hitchcock he would need to invent a character to help make Scottie real. To Taylor’s surprise Hitchcock said, “Fine.” And with very little discussion about it, he went off and created Midge.

According to Taylor, once he invented Midge, the whole picture fell into place for him.  “All the Midge scenes were mine,” recalled Taylor. “He didn’t know anything about Midge until he read the script and liked it.” Midge provided Taylor the opportunity to give Scottie more back story and allowed him to eliminate any scenes with Scottie’s police colleagues. Midge became the cynical voice of reason—much like Stella in Rear Window—not believing in any of the Carlotta Valdes nonsense. Taylor also added to the San Francisco flavor of the story by changing Madeleine’s dead ancestor from the novel’s Pauline Lagarlac to Carlotta Valdes, drawing on the local Spanish history. The Carlotta Valdes back story—that she was of Spanish-American ancestry, had been raised on a mission settlement, and that at a young age was a cabaret entertainer who became the kept woman of a wealthy, powerful man who abandoned her after having his child—added a social/sexual subtext that had been lacking in the previous scripts.

To speak even more about that history, Taylor added the character Pop Leibel. The Pop Leibel Taylor recalled from his childhood ran a candy store instead of a bookshop. Taylor knew the bookshop atmosphere well from having worked in a similar one while in college. With the invention of Pop Leibel, Taylor introduced a phrase that added to the script’s subtext. “Power and freedom” are used three times in the film significantly—first by Elster to Scottie, then when Pop Leibel refers to the man who left Carlotta but kept her child, and finally by Scottie to Judy. All the talk about “wandering” that pervades the movie also came from Taylor. And with these changes, Taylor helped Hitchcock layer the script into something very special.

And yet Taylor found that something was still missing. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He told Hitchcock that it was lacking a “Hitchcockian thing.” And then it hit him. Rather than saving the big reveal for the ending, they should let the audience in on the secret—that Judy was the woman who had pretended to be Madeleine. “The whole first act is deception,” said Taylor. “But once you get past the death and actually have destroyed the man, you’ve got to tell the audience that this was a plot. It can’t be a surprise. You can’t go all the way to the end of the picture.” 

Hitchcock agreed. Thus the flashback showing Judy reaching the top of the mission tower where Elster was waiting with his dead wife and Judy’s letter writing scene were written. Taylor’s instinct was exactly correct and followed the Hitchcock suspense principle in providing the audience with information. Yet, in retrospect, Taylor felt that the letter writing scene was weak. “I think, Hitchcock and I goofed,” remembered Taylor. “After the Mozart scene, we should have said, ‘What about the girl? This is the time to tell the audience what is happening.’ And we should have gone back to Gavin Elster. We shouldn’t have forgotten about him and the girl that cavalierly.”

Taylor said years later that the letter writing scene was inept; pointing out that he also hated resorting to it in the film adaptation of his own play Sabrina Fair, which he adapted with Billy Wilder. Taylor suggested that the “argument scene” between Judy and Gavin Elster should not have been played offstage. “You would get a much stronger feeling about the girl if she had to face Gavin Elster and say, ‘You’re going away, and without me.’”

Taylor reasoned that primed with this knowledge before hand, the audience would have a much greater sense of apprehension, anxiety, and foreboding at watching Scottie wander around San Francisco looking for Madeleine. On this point, I couldn’t disagree more. The audience needed to meet Judy from Scottie’s point of view before Hitchcock could cut away to hers. Furthermore, Hitchcock’s concern was with Scottie and Judy. There was no dramatic reason to see Elster or Midge again. As the world of the film became smaller—i.e. fewer and fewer characters—the situation between Scottie and Judy intensified.

Perhaps Taylor’s Monday morning quarterbacking was due to the criticism Vertigo received on its initial release. Nevertheless, even with its disappointing performance at the box office, Hitchcock had enjoyed working with Taylor enough to invite him back to collaborate on the screenplay for No Bail for the Judge—after Ernest Lehman turned him down. Sadly, Taylor’s script was victim to the director’s move from Paramount to Universal in 1961 and it remained unproduced. Taylor and Hitchcock would remain friends socially, and the writer came back to help Hitchcock with a rewrite on the troubled Topaz.

Inconsequential Material

I’ve always felt that Samuel Taylor best articulated Hitchcock’s approach to film and to working with writers when he said that constructing a film was like putting together a mosaic. And for Hitchcock, that mosaic was comprised of his favorite scenes, but when he didn’t have a good writer, there were pieces missing in that mosaic.

Taylor also understood that to Hitchcock, plot was secondary to story, observing that while the plot of Vertigo may be farfetched, the story is honest and true. “Hitchcock was a very emotional man,” recalled Taylor. “And having a good actor in Stewart, and having a good situation of a man driven almost to madness by what has happened, he was able to infuse it with enormous emotion. He preferred telling an inconsequential yarn, but bringing to it all the artistry he had.”

Taylor was not denigrating his own work when he referred to Vertigo as “an inconsequential yarn.” To put it in other terms, one could say that the director and his writers were constructing their yarn out of—if not smoke and mirrors—mirrors and some carefully placed fog. The film was constructed and designed to be Hitchcock’s ultimate love story, and in that respect, it succeeded on every level.

• Samuel Taylor is quoted from a talk he gave at Pace University (my alma mater) in June 1986, and from the BBC’s Omnibus (1986).
• For more on the structure of the Vertigo screenplay see The Hitchcock Kiss.
• For a complete account of the screenplay’s development, I recommend Dan Auiler’s Vertigo: The Making of a Hitchcock Classic.

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Steven DeRosa

Steven DeRosa is the author of Writing with Hitchcock. He has lectured on screenwriting and film at NYU's Hitchcock Centennial Conference, The American Museum of the Moving Image, Film Forum, and New School University, and has been a contributing writer to the Writers Guild of America Awards. Steven can be seen on-screen in the documentary, The Master's Touch: Hitchcock's Signature Style, available on Warner Home Video's 50th Anniversary Blu-ray of North by Northwest, as well as in featurettes on Paramount's forthcoming Blu-ray of To Catch a Thief. Steven's website is Writing with Hitchcock. He has a facebook page of the same name and can be found on Twitter as @WriteHitchcock...

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