The best films of James Stewart: #5 "Vertigo" (1958)

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Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” regular appears on lists of Hollywood’s all time great films. “Vertigo” ranks as the most psychologically complex from the Master of Suspense. Stewart was a favorite actor of Hitchcock’s having directed him in four pictures and “Vertigo” contains Stewart’s most challenging role. Vera Miles was set to be leading lady but pregnancy forced her withdrawal. Much bigger star Kim Novak took over. Based on a 1954 French novel, the film had on location scenes shot in San Francisco and first to employ a dolly zoom which created the vertigo effect. Stewart portrays a former policeman forced into early retirement due to suffering from vertigo and acrophobia. He even spends time in a catatonic clinically depressed state in a sanitarium. A man hires him as private detective to follow wife Novak whom he suspects of cheating. Nothing is what it seems and anything more cannot be revealed of the intricate plot. “Vertigo” is at once intense and confounding. It is haunting and dreamlike. The film is mater craftsman Hitchcock at his peak. Stewart is unlike how you have ever seen him before as his character is mentally tortured by psychological obsession. Legendary costume designer Edith Head did Novak’s wardrobe. Hitchcock’s favorite composer Bernard Herrmann (the immortal “Psycho” theme) provided the score. Mel Brooks’ “High Anxiety” (1977) was an homage to Hitchcock specifically “Vertigo.”