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Vertigo (1958)
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock · Shot by Robert Burks · Cut by George Tomasini · Music by Bernard Herrmann · Ratio 1.85:1 · 128 min
How it was made
- The mission tower from which Madeleine falls does not really exist at Mission San Juan Bautista; its steeple had been demolished after a fire, so Hitchcock added a much taller bell tower using scale models, matte paintings and trick photography shot at Paramount Studios.
- Because all of San Francisco's cemeteries had been evicted from the city limits in 1912, the screenwriters had to invent a grave at Mission Dolores, and the prop department built a real Carlotta Valdes headstone that was later removed by the mission as disrespectful to the actual dead buried there.
- The lone tree beside which Scottie and Madeleine first kiss, at Sunset Point Overlook on 17-Mile Drive, was a prop specially brought to the location rather than one already growing there.
- Hitchcock departed from the source novel by having the screenplay reveal Judy's role in Madeleine's death two-thirds of the way through rather than saving it for the ending, so the audience would understand her dilemma rather than be surprised by it.
- Three screenwriters worked on the adaptation in succession: Maxwell Anderson's treatment and Alec Coppel's draft were both rejected before Samuel A. Taylor, hired for his knowledge of San Francisco, wrote the final script and invented the character of Midge.
Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Alfred Hitchcock
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