Thornhill survives but is swiftly arrested by police.
Thornhill is interrogated by a spy who later stages Thornhill's death as a drunken driven accident. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is mistaken for another man and kidnapped by an advertising executive. There has been endless discussion around this film, making it a vital entry in the Hitchcock canon. Psychological obsession was the film's central theme, especially Scottie's obsession with the women in his life. In 2007, the film was ranked as the ninth-greatest American film of all time, and, in 1996, a restoration took place to create a new 70 mm print and a DTS soundtrack. Vertigo is considered a classic Hitchcock film and a defining moment in his career. Scottie eventually realizes that all is not what it seems with Madeleine. An old acquaintance asks Scottie to follow his wife Madeleine ( Kim Novak) as she'd been acting strangely and that her mental state seemed to be on the decline. His ex-fiancée Marjorie suggests that severe emotional shock could be the sole cure. In the aftermath, Scottie develops a fear of heights as well as vertigo. The effect is a slow-burn murder mystery that continues to chill audiences to this very day.Ī San Francisco detective, Scottie Ferguson (Stewart), retires after a rooftop chase gone wrong where a fellow police officer fell to his death.
In addition, a complex lighting system was constructed to pattern natural lighting effects for both the day and nighttime scenes. The set also featured an extensive drainage system, which was built to accommodate the rain sequence that took place in the movie. The Greenwich Village apartment setting was filmed at Paramount Studios on a gigantic indoor set.
Related: Why Hitchcock Filmed 'Rope' to Look Like a Single Take Jefferies attempts to get his friend Lisa (Kelly) to believe that the neighbor was murdered. One night, Jefferies observes that one of his neighbors is missing, and a man is cleaning a large knife in the man's apartment. Jefferies regularly stares out of his rear window, which has a view of other apartments as well as the courtyard. Jefferies, who is temporarily relying on a wheelchair in his Greenwich Village, Manhattan apartment. Among Hitchcock's very best, Rear Window stars James Stewart as L.