Oh, it's cool that Japan has places where you can watch older movies at. That sounds like a great activity to do with parents. I'm trying to think of things to do with my adult parents and that's a solid idea.

It’s amazing.

Seriously, maybe the most haunting score ever.

Bernard Hermann was the John Williams of his day.

Yes, i was blown away by the soundtrack. Just Masterpiece, like Psycho's soundtrack. I totally have to watch more Hitchcock now.

Absolutely - it's a character in the movie itself. As wonderful as this movie is, Herrmann's score is doing some heavy lifting.

I think the film is based on a French book as well.

It's ridiculously slow for a thriller.

@@davidz3879 agreed and when I saw this in Theater after it was restored in 1985 my date and i almost fell asleep during that I think almost 10 min with no dialogue. Still one of Hitch top 8 because I love R Window, North by nwest, Shadow of a doubt ,Notorious, Lifeboat and even SABoteur with Robert Cummings

North by Northwest Nothing like it!

​​@@michaelceraso1977 'Life boat' rarely gets a mention, Underrated. Rear Window is my favourite. I think 'Rebecca' should be next, just to lead to Du Maurier... 'Don't look now', anyone?

And "Strangers On A Train" and "Frenzy."

@@auerstadt06 "Foreign Correspondent" is a good one too.

I need to see Rebecca

@@tnfpodcast I've seen 26 Hitchcock movies (slowly making my way through all of them) and Rebecca is most definitely my favorite.

I'd take Shadow of a Doubt (what Hitchcock thought his favourite) than what a group of Oscar voters think.

Yeah some people guessed it was the same actress but I had no idea and was caught off guard until the reveal

She should have got an oscar. Why not? She did not fit in with Hollywood. Too real a person maybe.

Sure ! She did rght to go to Oregon with her Vet' husband Bob Malloy whom she married in 1976 until his passing away 3 years ago@@yourmother2739

@@yourmother2739 also, the Academy disliked Hitchcock. Rebecca was the only one of his to win Best Picture, and that was just because Selznick produced it. Then they gave Joan Fontaine Best Actress the year after for Suspicion, but really it was for her performance in Rebecca. Historical movies, biopics and melodramas. The way of the pre-60s academy

@@yourmother2739 So tue and she was much better in Oregon with her veterinarian husband !

Soon after you watch 'Strangers on a Train' you should watch 'Throw Momma From the Train' which is NOT a Hitchcock movie.

@@libertyresearch-iu4fy omg I was literally thinking of randomly watching that the other day after someone recommended it to me lol

Topaz.

You've left off your list the best Hitch film they have not seen, and arguably the best film by Hitch, period. *Notorious.*

​@@Cosmo-Kramer It's Shadow of a Doubt for me. Ha

Yes! In fact, it gets better every time I see it. Incredible movie.

Another actor in this who later went on to great success on TV towards the latter end of their career is Ellen Corby, the manager of the hotel, who played Esther "Grandma" Walton on The Waltons.

And daughter of the influential industrial designer...Norman Bel Geddes.

I Remember Mama.

@@catherinelw9365For which she became a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominee.

France of all places was uptight about it.

The Production Code specifically allows criminals to not be punished provided it was made clear to the audience that it was wrong. It was the public who objected to it.

@@jonalberts980 Which is funny because it's a adaptation of a French book, where the husband DOES get away and the protagonist straight up, unequivocally, murders the girl at the end.

Yes I hooted at that point 😄

@@owlhouse53 "Hooted" - and your display pic is an owl!

@@jhornacek 😄🦉

You didn't get full attention to this extraordinary scene. Hitchcock gives full of subconscious hints. In this scene you see the genius of Hitch in action. Like the amazing restaurant scene.

@@antoinemozart243At this point of the film you think that Gavin is a good guy and his wife is dead and Stewart is partially responsible. Yes, there may be subtle hints earlier in the film that hint at the truth of the plot, but nothing overt. No one is watching that scene and thinking that Gavin is the villain and that he killed his wife.

Agreed! Some channels who use bright white backgrounds can learn a thing or two here.

He is one of the greatest of all time absolutely, and i sure have to watch more movies with him.

I wouldn't really describe it as a drama. It's more of a psychological thriller, about a man who is manipulated due to his phobia.

@@Rocket1377 It's usually described as a thriller, but it's far too slow to be.

@@davidz3879 I'm not sure what you mean, or why a movie that's "slow" keeps it from being a thriller in your mind lol.

The only other film in Hitchcock's filmography that's similar in style and strangeness is Marnie.

It is a story of heartbreak, dramatic, the romantic Hitchcock and obsessions, it is the most atypical and at the same time personal film of the director.

I really feel the movie wouldn't be as affective with today's Affects. They used plenty of real birds, and the affects were creepy.

@@susanalexander6721 I totally agree! All the shots with real birds are absolutely creepy! CGI most definitely wouldn't work as well.

And his wife. Who had to tolerate Alfred's fixation on beautiful blondes.

Some good films before then that get ignored.

@@joebloggs396 Yes- 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Rebecca, Spellbound, Shadow of a Doubt and more all need to be seen by a lot more people.

Don't forget screenwriter Ben Hecht.

​@@keithbrown8490and Strangers on a Train. And The Man who Knew too Much black and white version. And Lifeboat.

Love that film - and we named our cat Pyewachet (although he is black and not a Siamese).

@@donna25871 that is so cool! I have a black cat named Bat, but I almost called him Pyewachet.

That movie came out the same year as Vertigo so the two leads in two very different movies check out Bell, Book and Candle for a change of pace.

Interesting "trivia" I didn't see mentioned yet... Bell, Book and Candle was also the inspiration for the series Bewitched. It's why in the opening animation, there is a cat (who turns into Samantha) when the family doesn't actually have a cat. PLEASE react to BB&C if at all possible! ☺️

PYEWACKET@@hannahl8

One of the greatest shots in film history. "Because I remind you of her?" The camera tracking in, Stewart's facial acting, and the musical swell as he semi realizes how similar she looks in side profile. Cinematic perfection.

@@ChrisWake agreed! 100%

Yes, Judy really could fill out a sweater.

Hitchcock was indeed obsessed with Grace Kelly, but Kelly retired in 1956, two years before Vertigo. Hitchcock had constructed Vertigo to star up-and-comer Vera Miles but she had to bow out due to pregnancy. Only then did Kim Novak get the role.

@@glennwisniewski9536 True, but I had heard he wanted to call back Grace out of retirement and she was interested, but her now role as Princess would no longer allow her to take part in motion pictures.

@@gutz1981 That's a true story, but it was for the movie Marnie. Hitchcock ended up going with Tippi Hedren (The Birds) who was pretty good in the role.

@@glennwisniewski9536 Grace Kelly might have been extraordinary in "Marnie." Apparently she was keen to do it but the family said no. ☹

@@karlmortoniv2951 Monaco wasn't thrilled to have their Princess playing a kleptomaniac.

Non the French title of Boileau and Narcejac coauthors is "From among the dead" (d'entre les morts in French) !

Absolutely great dream sequence. Gregory Peck does a wonderful performance in this film.

It was shown on NBC's "Saturday Night At The Movies". I remember it well!

Not all old movies were great. There were always a lot of terrible movies. Probably the worst ones of the past were worse than the worst ones now. But when they are great, there's nothing today that can even come close.

The key to understanding the ambiguous ending is in the title. What is "vertigo"? It's a false perception of the world caused by fear; the world isn't spinning, but Jimmy Stewart perceives that it is. There are clues in the movie, especially in Act 3, that the movie takes places from Jimmy Stewart's point of view, and you're not seeing events as they are, but as he perceives them.

Exactly. The nun is in the shadows so all she knows is that this woman is coming out of the shadows towards her. She's already thinking about Madelyne, and the last time she was in this tower, so she thinks this is Madelyne come for revenge and runs out the window.

My interpretation of the movie and Scotty's motivation is exactly the same as yours. I think a lot of people forget that Scotty was a detective before he was forced to retire due to his vertigo.

What I'm about to say doesn't invalidate your interpretation, because the film is the film, but the story's background has always influenced my reading of it and I see it as a film about obsession, and Scotty's behaviour is obsessive first and foremost. So, the film is based on a book, and the book is based on the story of Tristan & Isolde... and the key part of T&I is that when Tristan is parted from Isolde (another man's wife), in his desperation and heartbreak he marries another woman, also called Isolde. She's known as Isolde of the White Hands, and she obviously reminds Tristan of his 'real' Isolde... but not enough, and the marriage is never happy. In some versions of the story Isolde of the White Hands is simply jealous and second-rate, but in the more sensitive readings of the character she's somebody who tragically loves a husband who will never love her for her, and who only married her because of a similarity to anoither woman. I think the similarities to Judy's dilemma - her realisation that the only way she can truly get Scotty's love is to stop being herself and gives herself over to the illusory Madeleine that obsesses him. Bernard Herrmann at least was conscious of the debt to Tristan & Isolde, because his love theme in the scene where Judy emerges transformed blatantly draws on the Liebestod from Wagner's opera 'Tristan & Isolde'. It's also worth bearing in mind that the novel on which the film was based is even darker, with its protagonist seemingly obsessed by the idea that he can literally bring his lost love back from the dead... Of course, none of this means that Hitchock wasn't telling his own, different story, so as I say it doesn't invalidate your reading of the film... but I think it's relevant all the same.

100% agreed. He was traumatized twice and being a detective to resolve his suspicions was going to answer his questions. I don't think this "obsession" would last once she confessed. But reenacting the crime unexpectedly sealed her fate.

​@@petersvillage7447you are the only one besides myself to educate people on the Tristan and Isolde story. It seems you have listened to the Wagner opera as you commented on the transfiguration scene as she shimmers in the green light after fixing her hair. The music is so rich and thick with death and transfiguration motivs.

@@jeffreyjeziorski1480 For me it's the result of intersecting teen enthusiasms - Arthurian myth, Film Soundtracks and Classical Music particularly. Obviously all three of those roads lead to Wagner, of course... and I have an additional, personal fascination resulting from seeing the film Twelve Monkeys (with its key use of Vertigo and Herrmann's Scene D'Amour) in the company of a young woman when I'd not yet seen Vertigo and didnt understand its relevance - and then I saw it a second time in the company of another woman who reminded me of the first, and with whom I'd finally watched Vertigo. So when, in Twelve Monkeys, Bruce Willis watches Vertigo and muses on how a film seems different every time you watch it not because it has changed but because YOU have changed... now I understood why the Vertigo scenes with all their layers were in the film, and understood the music... and now I associated it with my personal Judy rather than my Madeleine... the film was indeed very different because I had changed, my mind was somewhat blown. The final layer? Well - I'll let you guess what my first name is...

Oh yeah, they're just giant, radioactive ants. He'd be totally cool with it. There is, however, a movie called The Incredible Shrinking Man that would scare the bejezus out of Mr TBR especially for the life and death fight with the spider. Enjoy.

OMG YES!! I was a kid living in San Francisco when this was being filmed. He was on the local news.

It took about half a century to become popular with critics & the general public.

High Anxiety is brilliant - but only after you have a few Hitchcock films under your belt.

Don't you mean High Ang...Ziety??

Du Maurier did not write Vertigo. The story was based on the 1954 novel D'entre les morts (From Among the Dead) by Boileau-Narcejac.

@@catherinelw9365 Yes, you are correct, it seems. Apologies for the error.

Maybe you were thinking of "The Birds" and "Rebecca"? Both were written by Daphne du Maurier.

It's also used in the movie 'Jaws' by director Steven Spielberg.

aka the "dolly zoom"

According to some sources, it was actually Hitchcock's second unit camera man and visual effects specialist Irmin Roberts who invented the technique, after Hitchcock described what he was trying to achieve. Hitchcock said the idea came to him after getting extremely drunk at a party and feeling like the room was moving away from him.

Peter Jackson used the dolly zoom in Lord of the Rings. He also used Hitchcock's famous zoom from Notorious in LOTR.

@@catherinelw9365 yeah, it's been used Ina lot of movies over the years. Even in Scarface, the first time Al Pacino and Michelle Pfeiffer do coke together, in his convertible.many comedies have used it too.

Great analysis that I've never really considered. You could put forward about twenty different analyses of this film and they'd all be valid. True multi-layered filmmaking brilliance

The key to understanding the ambiguous ending is in the title. What is "vertigo"? It's a false perception of the world caused by fear; the world isn't spinning, but Jimmy Stewart perceives that it is. There are clues in the movie, especially in Act 3, that the movie takes places from Jimmy Stewart's point of view, and you're not seeing events as they are, but as he perceives them.

It is pretty odd to see a LOT of current era ideas in a 65 year old film.

@@RobertMorgan Maybe because those ideas aren't that new...

@@RobertMorgan Well, those ideas aren't new at all! You should try reading some books to expand your world a little. :)

And Ernie Kovacs.

@chrisbiebel6205, I'd swear they referenced this connection when they watched it. I'm going to check it out to be sure.

Oops, I got this great reactor couple mixed with another one I follow pretty closely!!! Oh well....

Or is the whole movie a dream? How did Scotty get off that rooftop at the beginning anyway? Or….did he??? ;)

She fell accidentally. Her guilt and fear when seeing the nun approach, looking scary in the dark, is what made her pull away and fall. No one pushed her.

@@catherinelw9365 What is "vertigo"? It's a false perception of the world caused by fear; the world isn't spinning, but Jimmy Stewart perceives that it is. There are clues in the movie, especially in Act 3 (for example when they kiss and the background flashes to the tower), that the movie takes place from Jimmy Stewart's point of view, and you're not seeing events as they are, but as he perceives them.