#9 VERTIGO (1958)

I don't think of myself as a negative guy, not really, though that label has been put on me from time to time. I was really hoping all of the Top Ten movies would be at least four stars, if not five. Really. I swear.

Sigh.

Plot summary (with spoilers): We start out with some nifty camera work as we see Detective Scottie Ferguson and some cop on a rooftop chasing a bad guy. Scottie almost falls off the roof and is hanging on the railing. The cop tries to rescue him, but falls instead.
Cut to some time later, Scottie's talking to his platonic female friend Midge (who is both a better actress and prettier than Kim Novak) and they awkwardly dump a metric ton of exposition on us. Scottie was a detective for the San Francisco Police Department. He was chasing a suspect when he got acrophobia which caused him to get the dizzies like Lucille 2. Now, he's quit the force because he can't trust himself to perform his job. Both the actors are quite charming.
Then Scottie meets with a friend of his named Gavin who tells him that he believes his wife is possessed by the ghost of her dead great-grandmother. Yeah, the movie's going there. Kinda. Scottie think's Gavin is nuts, but Gavin says his wife moves around the city as if in a trance and doesn't seem to remember where she's gone, and would Scottie mind following her around for about half an hour or so of screen time? Oh, and if it's not too much trouble, please make sure not to do or say anything even remotely interesting at all during that time.
Done and done, says Scottie.
So he follows the wife Madeline around town. She stops every once in a while and appears to go into a trance. Then she moves along again and he follows her some more. Midge does research and learns that Madeline's great grandmother killed herself. Scottie follows Madeline to the SF Bay, and watches her jump off a bridge. He rushes in and saves her. It's not nearly as exciting as it sounds. She thanks him and they immediately fall in Movie Love.
The next day, he hangs with her all day, and she confesses to him that she feels like she's being possessed and stuff. Then they're at a church and she randomly runs into it and starts climbing the stairs to the bell tower above. Scottie tries to follow her but is overcome by vertigo and stops halfway.
He then watches in horror as he sees her body fall out the window past him.
So there's a hearing and the cops decide Madeleine killed herself and Scottie's not to blame because of the dizzies, and even Gavin doesn't blame him. But this does not stop Scottie from having some embarrassingly cheeseball nightmares (see the pic above) that look like something  directed by a cross between David Lynch and Ed Wood.
Then one day he sees a woman on the street who looks just like Madeleine. She has differently color hair and a different style and East Coast accent, but otherwise it's uncanny.
Intriguing.
He follows her to her apartment and says she looks like someone he Once Knew. She doesn't recognize him, but lets him in anyway. She shows him her ID. Her name is Judy and she's from back east. He's convinced she's not Madeline, but asks her to dinner anyway. She correctly guesses that the girl she looks like is dead. He nods sadly and she agrees to meet him later that evening. He leaves.
Cool, this is all very interesting, finally. Who is this girl? If she's not Madeleine, why does she look like her? Where is this movie going? So many possibilities!  The only way this could  start sucking again is if they suddenly revealed everything way too early.
Flashback. Exposition Dump II.
Madeleine in voice over writes a letter to Scottie confessing that she's not really Gavin's wife, she's an actress who looks like her and she's in cahoots with Gavin who killed his wife and then threw her off the bell tower, knowing that Scottie wouldn't make it all the way up to witness the "suicide". Oh, and also she feels totally guilty because she's in love with Scottie and that's why she's still in San Francisco hoping to run into him again. Then she rips the letter up, because the letter was not really part of the plot, but rather just a bullshit device to sneak in some voice-over narration.
So then Scottie and "Judy" start to date and he buys her clothes Madeline used to wear and asks her to dye her hair blonde and style it like Madeleine used to. "Judy" says this is creepy and insulting, but does it anyway.  Too bad we already know the whole  fucking story, otherwise this would be kind of mysterious and suspenseful instead of just fucking dumb and weird.
Then Scottie notices "Judy" is wearing a necklace that he saw Madeline wear or some shit and knows the jig is up. He asks to take her out to dinner and winds up driving her to the church. He tells her this is where Madeline killed herself. She says she wants to leave. He grabs her and starts pushing her by force up the steps. She struggles, but he keeps pushing, finally revealing that he knows who she is and magically knows what happened. He gets her to the top of the tower and holds her half out the window. He realizes bitterly his acrophobia is cured. She begs him not to hurt her and he hesitates. This scene is cool. Dark and suspenseful. Good job, movie. So what now? Black out? He kills her? He spares her? We don't know either way?
Oh. How about once last incredible moment of complete and utter bat shittery fucking nonsense horseshit? 
Done and done.
This is what happens:
A nun appears. though the trap door in the floor. Yes. She apparently tip-toed up all the stairs, so as not to disturb anyone committing domestic violence up above.
Then she's like "what's up?"
Madeline screams and jumps back and falls out the window.
Scottie doesn't react.
The nun says, "Oh my goodness" like a fucking android and then immediately and stiffly turns and starts ringing the church bell.
Scott climbs out onto the ledge and looks down at Madeline's body, his vertigo cured.
The nun keeps ringing the bell. You know, like you do after you just watch someone die.
Black out.

Review:
No really.
I swear. That is the scene that occurred in the boring shitty ass movie I just saw. That is easily the worst scene in the 92 AFI movies I've seen thus far, by a country mile. I'm tempted to just give this a giant goose egg rating and move on, but there were some good moments here and there, and Jimmy Stewart was very good. And the famous "vertigo" camera effect is quite inventive and cool for its time. Also, points for keeping me guessing there, if only for a little while. I don't know how I feel about Hitchcock, when all is said and done. I loved Rear Window, liked North By Northwest and Psycho and hated this thing. That's about a B average overall. I'm not opposed to watching more, but I doubt I'll be slapping him with a "genius" tag anytime soon.

Stars: One and a half out of five.

Next, we move on from this tragedy and go straight into the open arms of the Holocaust with "Schindler's List".