Filmmaker's Film: Vertigo

"Here I was born, and there I died.": The Vertigo Effect screens at BAM Apr 16—30.
Photo: Paramount Pictures/Photofest

By C. Mason Wells

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock’s 45th feature Vertigo was released to largely mixed reviews. This story of acrophobic San Francisco detective Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) hired to trail mysterious blonde Madeleine (Kim Novak) was tagged “basically only a psychological murder mystery” by Variety. Writers ranging from the Young Turks of Cahiers du Cinéma to Andrew Sarris to Robin Wood had begun to make the case for Hitchcock as a consummate film artist during the 1960s, but critical consensus took far longer; Vertigo failed to place in Sight and Sound’s once-a-decade critics’ poll until 1982. In 2012, it climbed to the number one slot and the title of Best Film of All Time, knocking Citizen Kane (1941) from its 50-year reign atop the belltower.

9 Things You Didn’t Know About Alfred Hitchcock

by Cynthia Lugo

Always remember to signal: Hitch at Cannes.

From the cool blonde to the wrong man, Hitchcock's influence on culture is inescapable. With the recent biopic Hitchcock, the television series Bates Motel, and Vertigo overtaking Citizen Kane as the greatest film of all time, Hitchcock fever has reached an all-time high.  Yet much of the public is unaware of his prolific silent output, and these films have lapsed in relative obscurity compared to his later work.

With The Hitchcock 9, the British Film Institute gives these films their rightful due. The series boasts all nine of Hitchcock’s surviving silents, painstakingly restored with newly commissioned scores. For film lovers, this series offers the chance to analyze the artistic development of one of world's most important directors.

In honor of The Hitchcock 9, here are nine things you may not have known about the Master of Suspense.

1. He started working in the film industry as a title designer on silent films in 1919—ironically at an American film studio that would later become the London branch of Paramount pictures.

2. He made the first British talkie, Blackmail, in 1929. You can watch a hilarious sound test with Hitch and the leading lady here.