Location, location, location

I rewatched "Vertigo" last night and was struck not so much by the story, which I found clever but ponderous, but by the importance given to the location. Rick, you mentioned that you like "Vertigo" because you like San Francisco, and that's a good reason to like it. The city is as much a character in the movie as Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. The location was one of the things I liked best about "The Lady Vanishes," too. Alpine, scenic. Storybookish and sinister. Cosmopolitan and provincial all at once, like San Francisco. And location was a big draw in "The Man Who Knew Too Much," too. Morocco and London. And the Americana of "Psycho." The French Riviera of "To Catch a Thief." On and on. And the locations are not just scenery. They're integral to the story.

I read this when I was looking up somethng about "Vertigo": According to Herbert Coleman, Vertigo's associate producer, Hitchcock often picked a location and then developed a story to be filmed there. He liked to show a familiar location and introduce a twist of malice. When he first saw San Francisco, he said it would be a good place for a murder mystery, and he chose a French novel, "D'Entre les Morts" (From Among the Dead).

Rate it

I hope you enjoyed “The Lady Vanishes,” which was described in one article I read as “a comic thriller” – a unique Hitchcock product. I rated it an 8 (rather than a 9 or 10) largely because of slow pacing at the start of the film. I’d even go so far as to say that the movie takes on a different identity when the main characters finally board the train (or at least until we see the street singer strangled). Prior to that, it felt like we were watching the setup to some screwball romantic comedy. The mystery-thriller doesn’t begin until some 20 minutes into the film – in other Hitchcock pictures I’ve seen, the plot develops immediately, or there’s a heart-pounding prequel (James Stewart, “Vertigo”) that entrances the audience from the get-go.

That said, the movie’s actually just 97 minutes. Did it feel long to you, or did you have a similar reaction to the beginning?