Vertigo

"Vertigo is a 1958 American film noir psychological thriller produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock."  It stars James Stewart, Kim Novak and Tom Helmore.  

Vertigo the illness is "a sensation of whirling and loss of balance associated particularly with looking down from a great height."  When I look down from our 11th floor terrace I feel a little queasy.  Not exactly vertigo, however.

In Vertigo the movie, the above illness plays a significant role.  Scottie (Stewart), a retired San Francisco police detective suffering from vertigo, is approached by Gavin (Helmore), an old college classmate, who wants him to follow his wife Madeleine (Novak) whom he says is suicidal.  

However, the real reason is Gavin intends to murder his rich wife  for her money.  He hires Judy (also Novak) to impersonate his wife who then lures Scottie to follow her up a church bell tower south of the city which he will not be able to climb all the way because of his vertigo.  When Judy reaches the top alone, Gavin throws down his already murdered real wife Madeleine making it look as though she committed suicide.  

Scottie assumes the dead woman is the Madeleine he fell in love with (really Judy).  Ridden with guilt at not preventing her "suicide," he suffers a mental breakdown from which it takes months to recover.

After he recuperates. Scottie is obsessed with the memory of Madeleine (really Judy), the woman he still loves.  He spends much of his time at places where he remembers her being.  

By shear luck, one day Scottie sees Judy walking down the street in her resumed life as an ordinary department store saleswoman.  Although her hair and clothes are different, Scottie is attracted to her because of her striking similarity with Madeleine.  Really?  

Scottie follows Judy to her room at the Hotel Empire.  (We stayed at this hotel when we visited San Francisco in 2008.)  At first, she rejects his advances, but because she fell in love with Scottie while playing Madeleine, she agrees to spend time with him.  Judy hopes Scottie will forget Madeleine and fall in love with her.  But Scottie is obsessed with Madeleine and wants Judy to dress like her, color her hair like her and change her hair style to be like hers.  As Scottie says to Judy, "It can't make that much difference to you."  Really?

However, Judy makes one fatal mistake.  She kept a souvenir of Madeleine's, a necklace she wore when previously with Scottie.  When he sees it on her, he puts the puzzle together and realizes that Judy was Madeleine and that she and Gavin duped him regarding the murder of the real Madeleine.  

With this knowledge, Scottie becomes very angry (maybe he should have been very happy the woman he loves is still alive) and drags Judy back to the church bell tower (late at night) and forces her, against her will, to climb it along with him.  They go all the way to the top (Scottie conquers his vertigo), the point where Gavin threw the real Madeleine to her imagined "suicide."

Judy is frantic with fear because of Scottie's aggressive behavior.  When she sees a dark figure (a nun dressed in a black habit) approaching from the shadows, she takes a step backwards and falls to her death.

I hate the above end of this otherwise wonderful movie.  I know Judy is guilty of being an accomplice to a Gavin's murder of the real Madeleine, but I don't believe she deserves what happens to her.  What about Gavin?  He escaped to Europe with his wife's money.  

Finally, I believe Scottie is to blame for Judy's death, forcing her to the top of the church bell tower, a dangerous place.  He should be charged with criminally negligent manslaughter, death resulting from his serious recklessness.