Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo is 50, but timeless in its moody semiotic complexity
Fifty years ago, Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Vertigo had its American premiere — in San Francisco, naturally, since that's where Hitchcock had filmed it. In his eyes, the city's timeless architecture and undulating streets were the perfect backdrop for a story of murder, treachery, and love so obsessive that the main character's mind spins out of control.
Today the film is widely regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema, but in 1958 its prospects didn't seem so bright. Advance publicity from Paramount Pictures had primed the public for a romantic thriller in the vein of previous Hitchcock hits, and the moody Vertigo was no such thing. In addition, Hitch was nervous about a screenplay decision he'd made, revealing the solution to the mystery with a third of the picture still to go. And marketers at Paramount didn't like the title. Would moviegoers know what it meant? Even if they did, would it sell tickets?
Those forebodings proved accurate. The pace was too leisurely and the plot was too improbable for many critics, such as the New Yorker scribe who called it "far-fetched nonsense." Panicked by weak ticket sales, Paramount yanked the offbeat posters for the film — cooked up by Hitchcock, they showed two silhouettes plummeting into an abstract spiral — and replaced them with ads emphasizing the San Francisco settings, murder-mystery plot, and glamorous stars. But the new campaign didn't help. According to the Hitchcock authority Robert E. Kapsis, Vertigo earned substantially less money in its first year than Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) had grossed in comparable periods. Critically and commercially, Hitchcock's daring thriller was an all-around disappointment.
Things were different in 1982, when Vertigo tied for seventh place in a survey of international critics asked to name the best movie of all time; in a 2002 update, it came in second, outpaced only by Citizen Kane (1941). In 1996 a restored edition opened to rapturous reviews and sizable grosses, confirming Vertigo as one of the belatedly acclaimed gems — others include It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and yes, Citizen Kane — that started as letdowns at the box office.
Read entire article at DAVID STERRITT in the Chronicle of Higher Ed
Today the film is widely regarded as a masterpiece of world cinema, but in 1958 its prospects didn't seem so bright. Advance publicity from Paramount Pictures had primed the public for a romantic thriller in the vein of previous Hitchcock hits, and the moody Vertigo was no such thing. In addition, Hitch was nervous about a screenplay decision he'd made, revealing the solution to the mystery with a third of the picture still to go. And marketers at Paramount didn't like the title. Would moviegoers know what it meant? Even if they did, would it sell tickets?
Those forebodings proved accurate. The pace was too leisurely and the plot was too improbable for many critics, such as the New Yorker scribe who called it "far-fetched nonsense." Panicked by weak ticket sales, Paramount yanked the offbeat posters for the film — cooked up by Hitchcock, they showed two silhouettes plummeting into an abstract spiral — and replaced them with ads emphasizing the San Francisco settings, murder-mystery plot, and glamorous stars. But the new campaign didn't help. According to the Hitchcock authority Robert E. Kapsis, Vertigo earned substantially less money in its first year than Rear Window (1954), To Catch a Thief (1955), and The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) had grossed in comparable periods. Critically and commercially, Hitchcock's daring thriller was an all-around disappointment.
Things were different in 1982, when Vertigo tied for seventh place in a survey of international critics asked to name the best movie of all time; in a 2002 update, it came in second, outpaced only by Citizen Kane (1941). In 1996 a restored edition opened to rapturous reviews and sizable grosses, confirming Vertigo as one of the belatedly acclaimed gems — others include It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and yes, Citizen Kane — that started as letdowns at the box office.