Vertigo seems like a more unique film that has more depth to it. North by Northwest is more entertaining albeit derivative. I´d rather watch North by Northwest if I had to choose but Vertigo is probably a technically better made film.
shareVertigo easily.
NbNW is popcorn fun but it’s basically a Bond film with a wrong-man twist. Vertigo is commonly regarded the best film ever made and has a universe of complexity and depth. No competition.
North by Northwest
share"Vertigo"!!!
A complex, unique, beautiful, and haunting film which needs to be seen several times to truly be appreciated. While "NBNW" is really nothing but an excuse to watch Cary Grant for two hours.
A tough one, but not that tough for me:
North by Northwest.
A little background.
For Alfred Hitchcock, these three films in succession are The Big Three near the end of his career:
Vertigo(1958)
North by Northwest(1959)
Psycho(1960)
These three Hitchcock films and ONLY these three Hitchcock films have an opening credit sequence that combines the great music of Bernard Herrmann(Hitchcock's greatest musical collaborator) and the great "fifties/sixties graphic artistic style" of Saul Bass -- who did many credit sequences for Otto Preminger and many standalone credit sequences for other movies like Spartacus, Ocean's Eleven, and Its a Mad Mad Mad World.
The "Herrmann/Bass launch" was matched by arguably the three greatest Hitchcock films ever made. Rear Window is close, but has no Herrmann score nor Bass credit visuals. And Hitchcock only had Herrmann's musical scores from The Trouble With Harry through Marnie.
The film after "The Big Three" was The Birds, but it didn't have a Saul Bass credit sequence(he pretty much quit Hitchcock after Psycho, even though Hitchocck gave him a special extra credit ON Psycho) and Herrmann was rather demoted by Hitch to "sound effects only " (with two other guys given billing for the machine that made the effects.
Nonetheless, if you take Herrmann and Bass out of it, you have "Hitchcock's Big Four" -- his most famous films today ALONG with Rear Window:
Vertigo 1958
North by Northwest 1959
Psycho 1960
The Birds 1963
Four in a ROW! Hard to find a director to match this (Spielberg had 1941 between Close Encounters and Raiders). I believe Godard(as a critic) said that those four films in a row made Hitchcock the most important man in the world for those years (five years -- it took an extra year to get The Birds made, nothing in 1961.)
In the every-ten-year Sight and Sound poll of international critics, Vertigo bested Citizen Kane as "the greatest film eve made." Its 2022 now -- will Vertigo hold its title?
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In the every-ten-year Sight and Sound poll of international critics, Vertigo bested Citizen Kane as "the greatest film eve made." Its 2022 now -- will Vertigo hold its title?
As a Hitchcock fan, I hope so, but I would have named three other Hitchcock films(in this order) before that one:
Psycho(above all)
North by Northwest(because Herrmann/Bass)
Rear Window
...and thus, I prefer North by Northwest to Vertigo.
I'm all in favor of the depth and personal feeling of Vertigo, but it was NOT much of a hit when it came out. It is missing the "popular vote" and that means something. NXNW was a much bigger hit -- and then Psycho beat them all (The Birds is very famous and got the highest rating on TV in 1968, but it didn't gross as much as Psycho and the dialogue is weak.)
North by Northwest was called "the Hitchcock picture to end all Hitchcock pictures" by its screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and of a type, it is: everything here is bigger, more epic, just plain MORE than any other Hitchcock thriller. Hitch had the budget to hire Cary Grant (not Bob Cummings) for his hero, James Mason(not Otto Kruger) for his villain, Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint and "a cast of hundreds." The budget and Hitchcock's then-good health allowed him to film all over the United States(well north by northwest from NYC to Mount Rushmore) and to make a movie of great humor, romance, action and above all: entertainment.
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Vertigo? Not so much. The story is at once perverse and deeply moving. The movie is unimaginable WITHOUT the great Herrmann (the same and moreso with Psycho). The Technicolor cinematography of a near-empty(!?) sometimes nighttime, spectral San Francisco and coastal environs is luscious and moody( and the bright deep reds of Ernie's restaurant treat the eye) and the dizzying climax in a rural bell tower is a thing of stunning emotional power...
...and a little "unintentional comedy." How QUICKLY somebody suddenly dies has gotten a laugh at some screenings I've been to. The film lacks humor and goes deadly serious in its second act, in which we are asked to believe that Kim Novak is "haunted" and that James Stewart kind of believes her (even as he CAN'T) and the whole thing becomes too slow and melodramatic.
I like Act One. The movie has a bang-up cliffhanger opening(clever-- the rest of the movie is much quieter), then a not-so-good expository scene(Stewart and sorta girlfriend Barbara Bel Geddes) then a GOOD expository scene(Gavin Elster briefs Stewart on the case) then....what, 20 silent, illusory minutes of Stewart stalking Novak as Herrmann envelopes us in obsession and yearning?
Then the not-so-good Act Two. Then a great "false climax" for Act Two and then "a whole new movie" for Act Three as Stewart and Novak become new people and a mystery is solved so that suspense (what will Stewart DO NOW?) enters in.
Act One and Act Three of Vertigo are fine by me, but I think audiences sort of understood that the movie was too unbelievable for its own good -- and too serious to skate by things.
That said, it certainly holds around Number Three or Four on my personal Hitchcock list. (Psycho at One.)
Cary Grant and much younger Eva Marie Saint in NXNW are a sexy couple. James Stewart and much younger Kim Novak in Vertigo...not so much.
But that's just me.
PS. One 1958 critic liked it even less writing: "A Hitchcock-and-bull story in which the question isn't so much whodunit and who cares?" He didn't know he was watching an art film.
I liked Vertigo.
I couldn't sit through North by Northwest.
Neither. Rear Window.
shareNorth by Northwest.
shareBig Hitchcock fan here and it's not even a contest: Vertigo all the way! There is something haunting about the story. In fact, haunting and fantasy seems to be a common theme. Scotty is haunted by the first death in the movie where he witnesses the cop fall and couldn't save him. Madeline is "haunted" by her grandmother. Scotty becomes haunted and tormented by the death of Madeline and inability to save her. He tries to reconcile his feelings of guilt and lost love by escaping into the fantasy of bringing Madeline back to life through Judy. In the end he finally gets closure, faces his fears and is cured. I love everything about this movie.
NBNW is actually one of my least favorite Hitchcock movies. Granted I only saw it once, but I thought it was pretty simple in terms of plot. As another commenter said, it's like a Bond film but mistaken identity. Still entertaining but, to me, not as deep.