Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9223 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-03-31
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 128 minutes

Amazon.com essential video
Although it wasn't a box-office success when originally released in 1958, Vertigo has since taken its deserved place as Alfred Hitchcock's greatest, most spellbinding, most deeply personal achievement. In fact, it consistently ranks among the top 10 movies ever made in the once-a-decade Sight & Sound international critics poll, placing at number 4 in the most recent survey. (Universal Pictures' spectacularly gorgeous 1996 restoration and rerelease of this 1958 Paramount production was a tremendous success with the public, too.) James Stewart plays a retired police detective who is hired by an old friend to follow his wife (a superb Kim Novak, in what becomes a double role), whom he suspects of being possessed by the spirit of a dead madwoman. The detective and the disturbed woman fall ("fall" is indeed the operative word) in love and...well, to give away any more of the story would be criminal. Shot around San Francisco (the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of the Legion of Honor are significant locations) and elsewhere in Northern California (the redwoods, Mission San Juan Batista) in rapturous Technicolor, Vertigo is as lovely as it is haunting. --Jim Emerson

DVD features
The Vertigo DVD presents the superb restored print of the film with a remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There's a half-hour documentary made in 1996 about the painstaking two-year restoration process, plus an informative commentary from the restorers Robert Harris and James Katz, who are joined by original producer Herbert Coleman. There are also text features on the production, cast, and crew, plus a trailer for the theatrical release of the restoration. This is an undeniably essential requirement for every DVD collection. --Mark Walker

Customer Reviews

Boring but great cinematography.
Vertigo starring James Stewart is considered a major classic but I found this Hitchcock mystery a letdown. The beautiful backdrop and costume design is breathtaking but the story is slow and kind of made me sick, all the vertigo, ugh! I prefer The Birds, Marnie, or Psycho instead. It's a mixed bag for me.

picture looks better than the 1999 dvd to this layman's eye
The picture looks better, no more blips or speckles. And I thought it was interesting when William Friedkin says Hitchcock loved working with fake backdrops. I never knew that, interesting in the age of CGI technology.

Ponderous
I can't imagine why this movie is so highly regarded by some critics and moviegoers. It is too slow, too complicated by half, has flaws of logic, and is indifferently acted.

Kim Novak has about as much facial expression as Paris Hilton. Oh, she's pretty, but acting should be more than a plastic doll. Barbara Bel Geddes has a part that is not necessary to the plot and she does little with it. James Stewart is his usual laconic self.

The plot is far too complicated. I can't go into much of the difficulty without giving away the ending to those who haven't yet seen the film. Suffice it to say that too many movies devise a Rube Goldberg way to murder someone when a simple gunshot would be more likely to work. In this film the setup takes far too long. Stewart chats with Bel Geddes about nothings and then with his old college friend about this and that before we get down to being introduced to the plot.

Then there are the flaws of reality. Stewart, who is retired form the police force, suddenly flashes his badge to a hotel clerk in order to get personal information. When a cop retires he forfeits both gun and badge. Then on several occasions Stewart follows Novak in his car, and something untoward happens miles from home. But Stewart returns with Novak one assumes in a single car, and yet the other car is also retrieved. Look at the scene again where Stewart saves Novak from drowning and try to figure out how Stewart gets his own car back--or how Novak managed to look so good after being fished from the cold and dirty water of the bay.

Details, details, details. They are what make the difference in a really good book or movie. In this case the details mar the film beyond enjoyment.