Vertigo (1958)

Yes, Vertigo is based on the 1954 French novel D'entre les morts (The Living and the Dead) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Hitchcock acquired the rights to the novel specifically after the authors' previous work, Celle qui n'était plus, had been adapted into the acclaimed French film Les Diaboliques. The novel's plot of a man manipulating another into re-creating a dead woman formed the backbone of Hitchcock's screenplay.

Vertigo was filmed extensively in San Francisco, and many key locations are still visitable, including the Mission San Juan Bautista, Ernie's restaurant, and the McKittrick Hotel area. The famous spiral staircase at the mission and the Golden Gate Bridge sequences are iconic to the film. The city has become a pilgrimage site for film fans retracing Scottie and Madeleine's movements.

The opening credits feature hypnotic, spiraling graphics designed by Saul Bass that emerge from a close-up of a woman's eye, visually establishing the film's themes of obsession and vertigo. The spirals directly foreshadow both the protagonist's acrophobia and the circular, self-repeating nature of the plot. Bass's title sequence is widely regarded as one of the most innovative in cinema history.

Vertigo received mixed reviews upon its 1958 release, with some critics finding it slow or convoluted, but its reputation grew dramatically in subsequent decades. In the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll, it famously displaced Citizen Kane as the greatest film ever made. Modern analysis has focused heavily on its psychological complexity, voyeurism, and the duality of Kim Novak's roles as Madeleine and Judy.