Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo : a film screenplay based on a french mystery novel

Posté par admin
samedi 16 juillet 2005 [n° 224]

In September of 1957, Alfred Hitchcock arrived in San Francisco for location shooting of his new thriller, Vertigo.

Why San Francisco ? (Pourquoi San Francisco ?)

“A lengthy narrative by husband Gavin Elster describing Madeleine’s obsession with San Francisco was unfortunately cut from the film, but it indicates the kind of romantic mood that Hitchcock realized he would get by shooting in San Francisco:

GAVIN ELSTER: “You won’t know what to look for at first, Scottie. Even I, who know her so well, cannot tell, sometimes, when the change has begun. She looks so lovely and normal. I realize now that the deep change began on the first day I brought her to San Francisco. You know what San Francisco does to people who have never seen it before. All of it happened to Madeleine, but with such an intensity as to be almost frightening.

She was like a child come home. Everything about the city excited her; she had to walk all the hills, explore the edge of the ocean, see all the old houses and wander the old streets; and when she came upon something unchanged, something that was as it had been, her delight was so strong, so fiercely possessive! These things were hers. And yet, she had never been here before. She had been born and raised in the East. I liked it at first, of course. I love this place; I wanted my bride to love it. But then it began to make me uneasy. Her delight was too strong; her excitement was too intense, it never faded; her laugh was too loud, her eyes sparkled too brightly; there was something feverish about the way she embraced the city. She possessed it.

And then one day she changed again… and a great sigh settled on her, and the cloud came into her eyes… I don’t know what happened that day, where she went, what she saw, what she did. But on that day, the search was ended. She had found what she was looking for. She had come home. And something in the city possessed her.”

Screenplay : based on the french crime novel “D’entre les morts” (Between the deaths) by Boileau-Narcejac

Quatrième roman de Pierre Boileau et Thomas Narcejac (Pierre Ayraud), publié aux Editions Denoël en 1954, “D’entre les morts” a inspiré le scénartio de Vertigo. Le livre fut souvent réédité, mais sous le titre “Sueurs froides“, titre français du film d’Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo.

La Paramount a achèté les droits d’Entre les morts en 1956 pour Alfred Hitchcock. Le premier scénariste pressenti pour Sueurs froides est Maxwell Anderson qui vient de collaborer au film “Faux coupable“. Son scénario est jugé “intournable et incompréhensible.” Hitchcock doit alors être opéré pour une hernie pendant qu’Alec Coppel travaille à une nouvelle adaptation du roman. Son scénario ne plaît pas au cinéaste. Le cinéaste connait des ennuis de santé qui ont peut-être eu une influence sur le personnage de Scottie Ferguson. Hitchcock fait alors appel à Samuel A. Taylor qui livrera la version définitive du scénario, travaillant à partir des visions du cinéaste.

Film matrice – Vertigo – Alfred Hitchcock, Etats Unis, 1959, 123 min, par Manuel Merlet, fluctuat.net

Noir Films in France

“In 1945 the Gallimard publishing house and Marcel Duhamel brought up a new crime series, the “Série Noire“. The series provided the filmmakers with a new source of inspiration and a new type of hero: a private eye (or an investigative reporter), physically fit, humorous, relaxed, charming, a lover of whisky and beautiful women. Expatriate American actor/singer Eddie Constantine made a career in the 1950s playing the quick-fisted FBI agent Lemmy Caution in the adaptations of British author Peter Cheyney: La Mome vert-de-gris / Poison Ivy (1952), Cet homme est dangereux / This Man is Dangerous (1953), Les femmes s’en balancent (1954), etc.”

on noir films in France, Le film policier noir (2) The Hard-Boiled Mystery Novels

Looking for a mystery ?

Vertigo is part of the film noir genre

“Vertigo is part of the film noir genre, aside from being a thriller, and the screenplay is based on a 1954 mystery novel titled D’Entre Les Morts (literally “Between the Deaths”). Despite its great critical acclaim decades after its release, the Academy Awards basically ignored the film. Vertigo received only two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Sound and another for Best Art Direction / Set Decoration. It did not win for either nomination”.

Gavin Elster: – Scottie, do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter and take possession of a living being?
Scottie: No.
Gavin Elster: If I told you that I believe that this has happened to my wife, what would you say?
Scottie: Well, I’d say take her to the nearest psychiatrist. Or psychologist, or neurologist, or psycho … or maybe just a plain family doctor. I’d have him check on you, too.

listen to the dialogue between Scottie Ferguson (James Stewart) and Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore)

Vertigo (1958) Jonathan L. Bowen, Orbital reviews

Vertigo. A vertiginous gap in reality and a woman who doesn’t exist Author: Joyce Huntjens, January 2003, Image & narrative

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The music

Music is the means by which we make contact with the spirit world.

Bernard Herrmann and Alfred Hitchcock —Genius meets Genius By Jim Emerson

Cinema, Film noir

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