50 Fun Facts About Vertigo

Which Hitchcock film followed Vertigo?

North by Northwest. Hitchcock and writer Ernest Lehman were meant to be adapting the novel The Wreck of the Mary Deare for MGM, got stuck, and invented this cross-country chase instead.

Who plays retired detective John 'Scottie' Ferguson in Vertigo?

James Stewart. Columbia lent Kim Novak to Paramount for Vertigo only as a trade: Stewart had to make Bell, Book and Candle with her for Columbia straight afterwards.

Vertigo was adapted from a 1954 French novel by which writing duo?

Boileau-Narcejac. An earlier novel of theirs became Clouzot's 1955 hit Les Diaboliques, and Paramount bought this one for Hitchcock before it had an English translation.

What is the clinical name for the fear that ends Scottie's police career in Vertigo?

Acrophobia. Scottie finds out he has it while dangling from a rooftop gutter, as the policeman reaching down to save him falls to his death.

Which camera effect was devised for Vertigo's dizzying shots down the bell-tower stairs?

Dolly zoom. Paramount cameraman Irmin Roberts worked it out: the lens zooms in while the camera tracks back, so the stairwell seems to stretch away beneath Scottie.

How was Vertigo's famous shot down the bell-tower stairwell actually filmed?

Horizontally, using a scale model. A rig to hang the camera above a full-size stairwell was priced too high, so Hitchcock had a miniature laid on its side and filmed along the floor.

Which actress plays Midge, Scottie's loyal friend and former fiancée, in Vertigo?

Barbara Bel Geddes. Midge isn't in the novel: screenwriter Samuel Taylor invented her with his friend Bel Geddes in mind, two decades before she became Miss Ellie in Dallas.

Which actress was first cast as Vertigo's Madeleine but withdrew when she became pregnant?

Vera Miles. She had finished her costume tests, but Hitchcock's gallbladder surgery pushed the shoot back by months, and by the new start date she was expecting.

In Vertigo, Midge is drawing an ad for which garment, built like a cantilever bridge?

A brassiere. Midge tells Scottie it has no shoulder or back straps and was designed by an aircraft engineer in his spare time.

In Vertigo, Madeleine keeps a room in Carlotta Valdes's old house, by then which hotel?

McKittrick Hotel. Decades later the immersive theatre hit Sleep No More borrowed the name for its New York venue in tribute to the film.

At which real California mission does Vertigo's Madeleine fall from the bell tower?

Mission San Juan Bautista. The real mission had no bell tower left to fall from by 1957, so the one on screen was a studio creation, added to the shots with matte paintings.

In Vertigo, where does Madeleine jump into San Francisco Bay?

Fort Point, under the Golden Gate Bridge. Scottie dives in after her and takes her home unconscious, where she wakes in his bed with her clothes drying in the kitchen.

Which museum houses the Portrait of Carlotta in Vertigo?

California Palace of the Legion of Honor. The scene was filmed in the real gallery, among the museum's own paintings, but Carlotta's portrait was a prop made for the film.

Which park near Hitchcock's Santa Cruz Mountains home supplied the redwood grove in Vertigo?

Big Basin Redwoods State Park. On screen it passes for Muir Woods, the famous redwood park just north of San Francisco.

Carlotta Valdes's grave in Vertigo lies in the cemetery of which San Francisco landmark?

Mission Dolores. The prop headstone stayed in the mission's graveyard after the shoot, a draw for the film's fans, until the mission had it removed.

In which real San Francisco restaurant, since closed, does Scottie first set eyes on Madeleine?

Ernie's. It was Hitchcock's own choice of restaurant, but the red-walled dining room on screen is a replica built at Paramount, exterior included.

On which famous San Francisco street is Scottie's apartment in Vertigo?

Lombard Street. His flat at number 900 sits a block below the street's famous crooked stretch, and Madeleine finds her way back to it by steering for Coit Tower.

What is Hitchcock doing in his Vertigo cameo?

Walking past a shipyard. He crosses in front of the shipbuilder's office about eleven minutes in; he liked to get his cameo over early so audiences would stop looking for him.

Who composed the swirling orchestral score for Vertigo?

Bernard Herrmann. The partnership ended badly eight years later, when Hitchcock threw out his score for Torn Curtain and the two men never worked together again.

Why was Vertigo's score recorded in London and Vienna rather than Hollywood?

A musicians' strike in the United States. The composer could not conduct, so Muir Mathieson began recording in London, and when the players there walked out in sympathy the rest was finished in Vienna.

Which Wagner opera does Vertigo's score extensively reference?

Tristan und Isolde. The love theme shadows the opera's Liebestod, the 'love-death' Isolde sings over Tristan's body, a pointed model for a film about loving a dead woman.

Which graphic designer created Vertigo's spiral-themed title sequence and poster?

Saul Bass. His spirals are Lissajous figures, curves from nineteenth-century mathematics, drawn for him by machine by the animator John Whitney.

Which Lady Gaga hit name-checks Vertigo alongside two other Hitchcock films in one verse?

Bad Romance. The verse runs through Psycho, Vertigo and Rear Window in two lines; Gaga said she meant wanting the darkest, sickest parts of a lover.

Which costume designer worked with Hitchcock on Vertigo's colour-coded wardrobe?

Edith Head. Grey was picked for Madeleine's suit because it jars on a blonde, and Hitchcock told Head that Kim Novak could wear anything she liked, so long as it was a grey suit.

Vertigo's unused ending has Midge hear what on the radio?

Gavin Elster being hunted in Europe. Hollywood's censors wanted the murderer seen to face justice, so Hitchcock shot the scene to satisfy them, then left it out of the finished film.

What was Vertigo's working title during production?

From Among the Dead. It is the literal English of the French novel's title, D'entre les morts; François Truffaut claimed the book was written to tempt Hitchcock, which one of its authors later denied.

Maxwell Anderson's rejected Vertigo script, Darkling, I Listen, took its title from which Keats poem?

Ode to a Nightingale. The line opens the stanza in which the poet admits to being 'half in love with easeful Death', apt for a story about a man in love with a dead woman.

Which widescreen process, running the film sideways through the camera, was used to shoot Vertigo?

VistaVision. Paramount's alternative to CinemaScope exposed a far larger negative than ordinary 35mm, which is why the 1996 restoration could be printed up to 70mm.

In which poll did Vertigo replace Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made in 2012?

Sight & Sound. Citizen Kane had topped the magazine's once-a-decade critics' poll for fifty years, and Vertigo had not even made its top ten in 1962 or 1972.

Which film replaced Vertigo at the top of the 2022 critics' poll of the greatest films ever made?

Jeanne Dielman. Chantal Akerman's 1975 film, over three hours of a Brussels widow's household routine, was the first directed by a woman to top the poll, having sat outside the top thirty a decade earlier.

Which body put Vertigo on its first National Film Registry list in 1989?

Library of Congress. Congress set up the registry in 1988 amid a row over colorizing black-and-white classics, and Vertigo made the very first list the following year.

Vertigo lost the art direction Oscar to which musical?

Gigi. Its nine-for-nine sweep set a new Oscar record, while Vertigo's only other nomination, for sound, lost to South Pacific, so the film went home empty-handed.

At which festival did Hitchcock win a Silver Seashell as best director for Vertigo?

San Sebastián, Spain. The festival also named the film's star joint best actor, whereas back home Vertigo managed two technical Oscar nominations and no wins.

Which studio reissued Vertigo and Rear Window in 1983 after acquiring rights from Hitchcock's estate?

Universal. Hitchcock owned Vertigo and four of his other films outright and had kept them out of cinemas for years, so the 1983 reissues let a new generation see them for the first time.

Which TV series named a character Madeleine Ferguson after Vertigo's two leads?

Twin Peaks. Laura Palmer's lookalike cousin borrows Madeleine Elster's first name and Scottie Ferguson's surname, and like Vertigo's two women she is played by the same actress as the dead girl, as a brunette.

Which colour follows Madeleine and Judy through Vertigo, from a Jaguar to a hotel's neon sign?

Green. Hitchcock chose Judy's hotel for the green neon sign outside her window, so that she would step out remade as Madeleine in a ghostly light.

At which San Francisco cinema did the restored Vertigo premiere in October 1996, introduced by Kim Novak?

The Castro Theatre. What the audience heard was partly new: for the remixed soundtrack, the restorers had Foley artists record fresh sound effects to sit beside the original music.

Which director reworked Vertigo's story in his thrillers Obsession and Body Double?

Brian De Palma. He and writer Paul Schrader openly modelled Obsession on Vertigo, and De Palma went as far as hiring Vertigo's own composer to score it.

What is the real first name of Vertigo star Kim Novak?

Marilyn. Columbia boss Harry Cohn wanted to rename her Kit Marlowe; she refused to give up Novak, and they settled on Kim.

In which Terry Gilliam film do the fugitive leads hide in a cinema showing Vertigo?

Twelve Monkeys. The story then copies what is on screen: the heroine puts on a blonde wig and steps out into coloured light, as Judy does when she is remade as Madeleine.

Vertigo reveals Judy's secret two-thirds of the way through, but when does the source novel reveal it?

At the very end. Hitchcock moved the twist forward so that the audience would know what Scottie doesn't and watch Judy's dilemma, instead of waiting for a surprise.

In the French novel behind Vertigo, into which river does the heroine jump?

The Seine. The novel opens in Paris in 1940 with a lawyer in Scottie's place; Hitchcock's writers kept the plunge and moved the whole story to San Francisco.

Vertigo's signature camera effect is also nicknamed after which 1970s blockbuster that reused it?

Jaws. Spielberg used it on the beach, pulling the background away behind Chief Brody at the instant he realises a shark is among the swimmers.

Vertigo's composer won his only Oscar for which 1941 film?

The Devil and Daniel Webster. It beat his own Citizen Kane score that night, and he never won again, not even for Psycho or Taxi Driver.

What triggers Judy's fatal fall at the end of Vertigo?

A nun rising from the tower staircase. She has only come up to see what the voices are, but the dark shape startles Judy into stepping back off the ledge.

In Vertigo, which object finally shows Scottie that Judy and Madeleine are the same woman?

Carlotta's necklace. Judy puts it on for dinner once her makeover is complete, and Scottie recognises it from the portrait he saw in the gallery.

Between the AFI's 1998 and 2007 lists, Vertigo did what?

Reached the top ten. Vertigo jumped from 61st to ninth, a 52-place climb for a film that had opened to mixed reviews and modest box office.

In Vertigo, Madeleine visits Podesta Baldocchi while Scottie tails her; what kind of business is it?

A flower shop. Madeleine buys a small bouquet that matches the one in Carlotta's portrait, the first sign for Scottie that she is copying the dead woman.

John Ferren designed Vertigo's nightmare sequence; which famous artist had designed the dream in Hitchcock's Spellbound?

Salvador Dalí. Hitchcock said he wanted Dalí's hard-edged style so that the dream would look sharper than the film around it, instead of the usual screen haze.

What pet name does Midge use for Scottie in Vertigo?

Johnny-O. The two were engaged for three whole weeks back in college, and Scottie reminds her that she was the one who called it off.