A Question of VERTIGO

August 19th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Last week I received a frantic late night call from my friend Herb Ross asking to help clarify a plot point in Hitchcock’s Vertigo. Eager to assist a fellow stickler for logic, I popped in my DVD, synced up with Herb and in no time put his mind at ease. After going through the effort of walking to the bedroom, locating my copy (filed alphabetically by director in chronological order) and carefully nesting it in my player, I figured WTF?, why not give the film of films another look?

It had been years since I sat down and watched the big “V” from beginning to end. With the exception of Midge’s comic relief, it’s all so damn depressing. My last audience was in 1997 when Robert Harris and James Katz “restored” Hitchcock’s obsessive masterwork. Though the 70mm blowup effectively reinstated the film’s original VistaVision aspect ratio and removed the heinous Universal logo hot-spliced onto the last shot of the 1984 reissue, the anemic color, heightened sound effects and computer enhanced stereo (the film was originally released in mono) proved little more than “pay attention to us” tinkering on the part of the self-serving preservationists.

For decades, it was impossible to see Vertigo in any format. I have meaningless memories of a Best of CBS telecast, but I was only six at the time and, having not yet been exposed to Under Capricorn, could not possibly have appreciated The Master’s inner-dialog. Hitchcock bought back the rights to Vertigo, along with Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry and the Technicolor remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much. The films were not put on public display until years after his death when they were re-released as a package with the proceeds going to his daughter and grandchildren.

Of the five “lost” Hitchcocks, only Rope was withheld me until the 1984 reissue. Three of the group were made readily available thanks to my nitrate “brother” Rick Marks who owned 16mm dye transfer prints of Rear Window, TMWKTM and Harry, We were so jaded that one night, while his print of Rear WIndow screened at an after hours party for the Parkway Theatre staff, we sneaked up to the projection booth to study a Marcus Welby, M.D. rerun.

Somewhere in 1980, Rick secured a video cassette copy of Vertigo. It was before I owned a VCR, and I was fortunate enough to watch it with Dave Kehr, Tom Bruggeman and Lloyd Sachs on Dave’s 15″ Sony. Instead of Motion Picture High Fidelity, this 90th generation dupe appeared to have been photographed in the grandeur of Macular Degeneration. At least it was letterboxed.

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