A couple of years ago, I received an Alfred Hitchcock Blu-Ray boxed set for Christmas. I haven’t really cracked it beyond the movies I’m very familiar with–Psycho, North by Northwest, Rear Window–so with nothing on a couple of Saturdays ago, we threw in Vertigo, which I think is safe to say is within the Pantheon of Hitchcock films and has a reputation for being a great film in itself.

A basic summary of the plot is that Jimmy Stewart plays Scotty Ferguson, a former detective who suffers from Vertigo after nearly dying during a rooftop chase. He’s hired by one of his former college classmates to follow that guy’s wife around (Kim Novak, doing the iconic Hitchcock blonde). Over the course of the film, Scotty gets more an more intrigued with her to the point where they begin an affair and it pretty much tips over into obsession. There is, of course, a lot more going on and I’m probably not giving the film justice, but I wanted to do a spoiler-free synopsis.

Anyway, this movie is praised, especially for how it was made. And I can see that. From Saul Bass’s titles and Edith Head’s costumes to Robert Burks’ cinematography, it deserves so much of the praise it gets. But the story is … well, it’s got its moments but between a number of elements that just don’t hold up and a couple of random twists (some that work and some that don’t), my wife and I were literally asking “What did we just watch?”

Granted, I’m not a big Jimmy Stewart fan to begin with, but as much as I love him in Rear Window, I just didn’t here. Plus, Barbara Bel Geddes is criminally underused because she’s got some of the better chemistry with Stewart and kind of disappears halfway through the movie. At least Kim Novak is gorgeous?

Look, I don’t want to spend several paragraphs crapping on this movie because it’s not like it’s terrible. I enjoyed quite a bit of it but didn’t think it worked for me. But at least I watched it and can check that off of my list and move onto another one of Hitchcock’s classic films.

Watch or Skip?

Watch if you’re doing a tour of Hitchcock’s greatest hits; otherwise, it’s a skip.