This film has
a 96% percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Dismissed
when first released, later heralded as one of director Alfred Hitchcock's
finest films (and, according to Hitchcock, his most personal one), this
adaptation of the French novel D'entre les morts weaves an intricate web of
obsession and deceit. It opens as Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) realizes he
has vertigo, a condition resulting in a fear of heights, when a police officer
is killed trying to rescue him from falling off a building. Scottie then
retires from his position as a private investigator, only to be lured into
another case by his old college friend, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore). Elster's
wife, Madeleine (Kim Novak), has been possessed by a spirit, and Elster wants
Scottie to follow her. He hesitantly agrees, and thus begins the film's wordless
montage as Scottie follows the beautiful yet enigmatic Madeleine through 1950s
San Francisco (accompanied by Bernard Herrmann's hypnotic score). After saving
her from suicide, Scottie begins to fall in love with her, and she appears to
feel the same way. Here tragedy strikes, and each twist in the movie's second
half changes our preconceptions about the characters and events. In 1996 a new
print of Vertigo was released, restoring the original grandeur of the colors
and the San Francisco backdrop, as well as digitally enhancing the soundtrack.