Kindle Vertigo: Sample from Post-Production Chapter

Laz Marquez



POSTPRODUCTION


Only robbers and gypsies say that one must never return where one has been.


-Kierkegaard



The time spent in Jamaica gave Hitchcock occasion to evaluate what he had accom­plished during the filming. He had to admit that Novak had improved during the production. Her attitude may have been difficult, and her personal life was undoubtedly a mess: Even during this short vacation, she managed to focus the nation's atten­tion on her affair with Sammy Davis, Jr. Hitchcock couldn't have been sad to realize that soon she would be Harry Cohn's problem again, not his. Yet neither could he have failed to realize that, on-screen, Novak had the look. Moreover, as an untrained actress, she seemed able to tap dimensions that Vera Miles (who was much more skilled) could not have reached. The reality of the box office forced the director to use big-name stars, yet he could accomplish so much with the unseasoned. He was Grace Kelly's teacher. Unwilling as she was, he had also brought something real out of Kim Novak. Who would be next?
Bel Geddes intrigued him. She was smart and interesting. He'd cast her for an episode of his television show, and he must have considered how else to use her. But he could sense the same independent streak that had tarnished his grooming of Miles. Bel Geddes had no interest in being groomed by anyone.
Novak, for her part, was too unpredictable-and she was under contract to Cohn, who would never relinquish her completely for any reasonable price. No, the future Hitchcock blonde was still waiting to be discovered: someone new, who wanted a teacher and mentor, who came with no difficult baggage. He would keep waiting.
Back in New York, Hitchcock watched the first rough cut of Vertigo with Lew Wasserman, Herbert Coleman, editor George Tomasini, and Peggy Robertson soon after he returned from Jamaica in early January.
Robertson remembered that there were few problems of any importance.
But there was work to do: Hitchcock was very unhappy, for instance, with Madeleine's run across the yard in San Juan Bautista. "I had talked to Hitch and he asked me to tell George to cut part of the run even though it wouldn't quite match. I remember when I [ran] into George, he took one look at me and with his deep, charming laugh, he said, 'He doesn't like Madeleine's run.' George knew Hitch well enough that I didn't have to tell him."
Tomasini was well loved by Hitch and the crew. A large, friendly man, he was nothing like what one might expect an editor to be. He was an outdoors man with a deep, booming voice---the opposite of the quiet, sedentary Hitchcock---yet editor and director got along extremely well. After seeing his work on Rear Window, Hitchcock refused to let anyone but Tomasini touch his films (with the exception of The Trouble with Harry, which was already in production), and the two worked closely together for a decade. (During these years, Tomasini was also the editor on John Huston's The Misfits and J. Lee Thompson's Cape Fear, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for his work on North by Northwest.) Tomasini's death after Mamie would be a tough blow for Hitchcock personally and creatively.

During that first screening, Hitch made extensive notes on the editing of the film and the dubbing. As of January 6, 1958, Bernard Herrmann was on contract and at work on the film's score-Hitchcock had been discussing the film with him for some time beforehand-but the focus in mid-January was still on the shape and sound of the film itself.
As we've seen, Hitchcock's films were generally shot to an existing cutting plan; this enabled Tomasini to start building this first rough draft during the filming, and he finished assembling it in the few weeks after the production wrapped. Many films spend months in this phase of postproduction, but Vertigo took little work before it was ready to score (that is, close enough to final form that music could be written to fit the timing of each sequence).
Thirty-five-millimeter prints, reduced from the Vista Vision originals for editing purposes, were separated into ten-minute reels (or approximately one thousand feet); notes that Hitchcock made at the time used individual reel numbers (1, 2, etc.) for reference. With the exception of Rear window and Psycho, the Paramount films were shot in Vista Vision, Paramount's proprietary widescreen process, and released nationwide in either anamorphic or standard 35mm prints (see Appendix B for a full description of Vista Vision).
Most of the first batch of notes concern Hitchcock's ideas for lengthening or shortening specific shots, and they highlight some of the director's larger concerns on his first viewing. Not unusually, after seeing this first cut, Hitch­ cock was primarily concerned with tightening the film. In the second reel, he tightened the long dialogue scene between Elster and Scottie. He asked Tomasini to keep the pace when the film gets to Ernie's: "Start on Ernie's straightway---i.e. rhythm outside and inside without a stop." Further time was saved when Scottie follows Madeleine in his DeSoto: "Lose all downhill shots. Straight on Grand Ave. Try without a dissolve.... Drop whole of California Street. As Madeleine turns to go down California Street dissolve to car turning into street with railing---left turn---right turn---Grand-pick up at Stockton thus losing all hill shots. Ignore geography---consider length only regardless of turns." This sequence would still take considerable time in the final film; it must have been long indeed in the rough cut.
The notes also touch on more serious problems. For example, Hitchcock had specific, lengthy instructions for the flower-shop scene: "Podesta's Flower Shop sequence. Put in establishing shot of flower shop. He opens door slowly in his CD [Scottie's close-up shot]. As light appears on his face we then reveal the shop. The screen is black: we see it unfold and then establish flower shop. When completely revealed-then go to mirror shot which is secondary and should be used only as an occasional snip-used when he backs away as she comes forward. We must see her buy the posy. Do we have enough footage on Scottie so we could eliminate the mirror? Anyway, only use it when Madeleine comes forward and turns."

Later, in reel 6, Hitchcock returns to tightening. The car scenes are too long: "Get the cuts shorter and shorter on car ride. Build it up so it gets more comic. Snap-snap. Increased tempo. Need rhythm. Pick up shot later of Jaguar down street and turning. In the straight her shots are dull."

In the very next reel, however, when Scottie and Madeleine visit Big Basin, Hitchcock takes the opposite tack. "Lengthen opening shot into Woods," he wrote. "The dissolve to Woods must be very slow .... Delay when Scottie comes up to Madeleine leaning against tree.... Lengthen fade out-Scottie and Madeleine walking into sun." Lingering on scenes like this helped the di­rector achieve just the dreamlike aspect he wanted for Scottie and Madeleine's forest encounter.




At other times, though, Hitchcock was far less certain of what he wanted.
In his notes concerning reel 11, for example, there are two points labeled "de­ bate"-both having to do with the crucial question of when the audience should suspect that Judy is actually Madeleine. "Debate: Scottie waiting outside Em­pire hotel. Question of amount of time he spends there gives more importance to the girl-must be very careful until we see her-not to spoil the big sur­prise." Then, concerning the dialogue in this scene, he wrote: "Debate, 'You've got to prove you're alive these days.' His question here is so persistent it might be a tip-off." The line was cut from the final film.

Then these provocative instructions about Judy's letter-writing scene ap­pear in the notes: "Cut the three murder scenes over Judy's CU." Hitchcock was still worrying over the effect of the crucial revelation in the scene: Did he mean to cut the flashback? Or was he just calling for a change in approach from superimposing the scenes to dissolving into them? "I remember there be­ing some question about this scene. I don't think we wanted it in at first," Robertson remembered.
One note was no surprise: "101. Drop Tag." Hitchcock had never seriously intended to include the film's tag ending in the final cut---it was shot only to placate the censors---and it was cut after this first viewing.
After seeing this version of the film, Hitchcock also dictated fourteen pages of dubbing notes. Much of the transcript is repetitive, but it does provide a window as to Hitchcock's intentions in several scenes-and a testament to his overall commitment to the use of sound (in addition to music) to achieve the effect he was looking for.
Hitchcock's notes for sound on the first reel read:
Over the opening scene we should hear some shouts and the metallic sound of feet climbing the rungs of a steel ladder. These sounds come while the screen is empty and before the first hand comes over to grip the railing. Naturally, these sounds will increase in volume as the three reach the top. Over all, we could have faint sounds of the city, mostly automobile horns and truck noises. Perhaps even the faint clang of a cable car bell. These faint sounds will continue, but should be dominated by the running feet of the three men across the rooftops.


Now we come to the leaping part of the \ chase. Naturally, of course, the sounds we now have . . .






VERTIGO:




The Making of a Hitchcock Classic





by Dan Auiler
Foreword from Martin Scorsese

Ebook copyright 2011 Dan Auiler
Foreword copyright 1998 Martin Scorsese Vertigo images used with permission, all rights reserved the Alfred Hitchcock Estate and Universal Studios

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