Line #1 Trivia/Vertigo


1	* ActorSharedBackground: Judy Barton is a Midwestern girl who moves to California and gets noticed by an older man, who grooms her into portraying a specific look and image. This parallels Creator/KimNovak and her experience working for Harry Cohn at Creator/ColumbiaPictures. Judy's hometown of Salina, Kansas is where Novak filmed her StarMakingRole in ''Theatre/{{Picnic}}'' (though that was just a coincidence).
2	* CaliforniaDoubling: Big Basin State Park stands in for the nearby Muir Woods featured in the film.
3	* CreatorBacklash:
4	** Creator/AlfredHitchcock in his interviews with Creator/FrancoisTruffaut said that he considered ''Vertigo'' one of his best films, but he admitted that it was imperfect and in other interviews, he blamed the poor reception on miscasting James Stewart, saying he was perhaps "too old" for his role. He also later said that Kim Novak was miscast and that he regretted the fact that his first choice Creator/VeraMiles did not play the part. Later scholars, noting Hitchcock's tendency [[LyingCreator for obfuscation]] have questioned this. Stewart was always Hitchcock's first choice for the part, and the [[Film/NorthByNorthwest film he made]] after ''Vertigo'' had Creator/CaryGrant who was ''older'' than Stewart. Kim Novak however was indeed forced by the studio, and Hitchcock had developed a rapport with Vera Miles who he directed in ''Film/TheWrongMan'' and the pilot episode of ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'',[[note]]She would later play Lila Crane in ''Film/{{Psycho}}''[[/note]] and indeed the original costumes designed by Edith Head for Madeleine was made with Miles in mind.
5	** While many enthusiasts and critics consider his score a masterpiece, Music/BernardHerrmann was rather cheesed off about ''Vertigo''. His main gripe was that he didn't conduct and orchestrate the music. He was one of the few composers of that era who insisted on total creative control who not only wrote his musical scores but personally orchestrated and conducted musicians. For ''Vertigo'', a musicians' strike meant that the orchestration was done in England, conducted by Muir Matheson (a highly respected professional in the field), which was still not good enough because he did feel the composition was one of his best works, and regretted the fact that he never put his own official version on the score (There is no recording of Herrmann's rendition of ''Vertigo''). Herrmann also didn't like the movie a great deal and preferred other Hitchcock films. He felt that it should not have been set in San Francisco, and like Hitchcock, felt Stewart was miscast, albeit for different reasons. [[note]]Herrmann felt that someone like Creator/CharlesBoyer who was both older than Stewart and also looked older than his age would have been more appropriate for the role of an obsessively romantic male hero. He felt Stewart was too nice and everyman-like to get audiences to buy that someone like him would risk his sanity and his career for a romantic fantasy.[[/note]]
6	* DawsonCasting: Scottie and Midge are meant to be the same age, but Creator/JamesStewart was fifteen years older than Barbara Bel Geddes and looks it.
7	* {{Defictionalization}}: Gavin Elster's office set, which was designed by the famous Henry "Hank" Bumstead so impressed Hitchcock, that he commissioned Bumstead to remodel his real-life office based on Elster's. As such many wags noted that Hitchcock would invite people into his office and walk through stories in the mode of the villain of this film, in the same way Elster manipulated Scottie.
8	* DeletedScene: During the film's production, a tacked-on ending scene set in Midge's apartment was shot, offering a clearer exposition of Elster's and Scottie's fates. It was shot for overseas prints of the film in countries whose censor boards were tougher than [[UsefulNotes/TheHaysCode the Hays Office]] (which, by 1958, was a lot more lenient and was entering its twilight), and was eventually included as an extra on various home video releases. It was never screened in America on original release and was definitely not Hitchcock's preferred ending.
9	* EnforcedMethodActing: The fact that the role of Madeleine/Judy was intended for Creator/VeraMiles and the costumes for Madeleine was designed by Edith Head with Miles in mind allowed Kim Novak to immerse herself into a role of a woman trapped by a man's obsession of shaping her into an ideal image. The grey suit was especially uncomfortable for Novak to wear, because it hadn't been designed for her at all. As such Madeleine comes across as strained, affected and a little distant while Judy is natural and truly herself.
10	* FollowTheLeader: Creator/BrianDePalma made two loose remakes: ''Film/{{Obsession}}'' ([[TheBigEasy New Orleans]] instead of San Francisco and an extra twist involving the DoppelgangerReplacementLoveInterest, and a Music/BernardHerrmann score) and ''Film/BodyDouble'' (claustrophobia instead of acrophobia).
11	** Just about every erotic thriller made between the late 1980s and early 1990s used the premise of ''Vertigo'' as a template (easily-manipulated protagonist coping with a past trauma, enigmatic FemmeFatale with a dual identity, and often a BigBadFriend who sets up the protagonist). ''Film/BasicInstinct'', which started the Erotic Thriller craze of the 1990s, lifted some of its visual iconography from ''Vertigo'' due to the director, Paul Verhoeven, realizing he would be filming a movie that is similar to the Hitchcock classic in the very same town it was filmed, and used a similar visual style, such as the Femme Fatale dressing in an outfit similar to one of Madeleine's outfits in one scene, as an homage.
12	* LyingCreator: Creator/AlfredHitchcock claimed for years that his wife hated the film. Alma Reville actually loved it when she first saw it.
13	* TheOtherMarty: Creator/AlfredHitchcock said that Creator/VeraMiles was his preferred choice as Madeleine. She performed a costume test and modelled for an early version of Carlotta's portrait, but had to leave the project after becoming pregnant. Apparently, the studio wasn't really enthusiastic about Miles anyway and was eager to have Kim Novak, who had been their choice from the start, take over.
14	* PlayingAgainstType:
15	** Creator/JimmyStewart in a not very heroic part.
16	** Extremely prolific character actor Creator/HenryJones didn't really have a specific type, but modern viewers who know him best as PsychopathicManchild CrustyCaretaker Leroy in ''[[Film/TheBadSeed1956 The Bad Seed]]'' will be shocked to see him convincingly play the very dignified, utterly serious coroner who leads the inquest into Madeleine's death.
17	* ReferencedBy:
18	** In ''Literature/BeingBindy'', Bindy and her mum watch ''Vertigo'' together.
19	** ''Series/PushingDaisies'': In the first season episode "Bitches", Simone, the suspect Emerson has been interrogating, [[InstantSedation chloroforms him]], he has a dream sequence straight out of the movie, complete with similar effects.
20	* ThoseTwoActors:
21	** A dozen years after sharing a memorable scene in ''Film/ItsAWonderfulLife'' ("Could I have $17.50?"), James Stewart once again worked with Ellen Corby, who played the desk lady at the [=McKittrick=] Hotel.
22	** Stewart and Kim Novak were reunited in ''Film/BellBookAndCandle'' (which Stewart agreed to make for Creator/ColumbiaPictures in exchange for Columbia loaning Novak out for ''Vertigo'').
23	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
24	** As noted above, Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Madeleine/Judy was Creator/VeraMiles. Hitchcock intended this to be her StarMakingRole after she had played the main lead in ''Film/TheWrongMan'', a preceding film of TheFifties. Some have theorized that he saw Miles as the SpiritualSuccessor of Creator/GraceKelly and Creator/IngridBergman. Her pregnancy meant she couldn't commit to the part at the time which Hitchcock greatly regretted and never stopped complaining about.[[note]]Hitchcock generally resented the fact that actresses he developed a strong working rapport with, such as Creator/IngridBergman and Creator/GraceKelly, would get married and become inaccessible for his later projects, many of which he had planned with roles with them in mind, which he had to give up and shelve indefinitely. ''Vertigo'' was one of the few cases [[SunkCostFallacy where he had to more or less go ahead with the project]] in less-than-ideal conditions[[/note]]
25	** Hitchcock originally wanted to cast Creator/LanaTurner in the lead role, but she "wanted too much loot" and was dropped from consideration. Creator/AudreyHepburn was also interested.
26	** Creator/JosephCotten, Creator/LeeJCobb and Everett Sloane were considered for Gavin Elster.
27	* WorkingTitle: Filming began as ''From Among the Dead'', which is the literal translation of the original novel's French title, but nobody really liked it. The studio suggested a bunch of titles, many with the word "face" in them, and Hitchcock liked ''Face in the Shadow'', but he changed his mind, and others were worried about the similarity to ''Film/AFaceInTheCrowd''. Hitchcock chose ''Vertigo'' but the studio hated it and tried to talk him into going back to ''Face in the Shadow'', or ''Fear and Trembling'', or a long list of other suggestions that he turned down (which included ''Franchise/TheDarkTower'' and ''Series/WithoutATrace'').
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Context Trivia / Vertigo