The most suspenseful movie I've ever seen is...

-1408... comes from Stephen King's novel.
-final destination

Look, let me say first I mean no disrespect to a film you love. I know lots and lots of people think its wonderful and I'm in a very small minority who just don't appreciate it.

The thing that has always bothered me about Vertigo from the first time I saw it in my teens is that no one in his right mind would try to murder someone like that because the murderer has almost no control over what happens. Consider this: First the would-be killer finds this former police detective with this horrific case of vertigo and hire him to guard his wife who he claims has mental problems of her own. The detective follows her for a few days around San Francisco, but does he ever see her really meeting or reacting with anyone? The murderer-husband has money and position, so his wife must have some social connections in town--the flower club, friends of the opera, a psychiatrist to treat her alleged problem, someone, something! But no, all the detective sees is her jump into the bay with him just a few feet away so she's quickly rescued. Plus they are the only two people in that remote area--doesn't she have to know he followed her down there and why would she then try to kill herself when she's got a would-be rescuer standing by? Anyway, this puts them into contact with each other. But contact isn't enough--either she seduces him as part of the plan or else they "accidentally" fall in love with each other, which is not part of the plan. As I remember it, the movie takes the second point of view into the plot. So here she is, knowing that she's supposed to be setting him up as a unquestionable and unquestioning witness to a "suicide" that is really to be a murder. She knows she must disappear after the murder, yet she falls in love with the detective despite the risk that this could do her out of the money she's being payed for her part and also send her to jail if she and the murdering husband are caught. Meanwhile, she and the detective are going out dancing and dining and long drives, etc., in a city where the wife also must be circulating, unless the husband has her tied up in the basement so she can't get out. (If she's tied up, won't that leave rope burns and broken nails and such on the body?) But you see what I mean--you've got two women posing as the same woman but the imposter is never encountered by the real wife and her friends. If the two are supposed to look alike wouldn't one of her friends mention to her husband or other friends that wife is out running around with a lover? (OK, Frisco is a big town; but Houston is even bigger and I've run into one girlfriend while out with another on at least 3 occasions and encountered friends of girlfriends even more often. Someone who looks like Kim Novak is going to stand out in a crowd even more.)

So anyway, the time finally comes for the killing which takes place at a California landmark that attracts lots of tourists, so there are plenty of people around. The fake wife starts up the church tower; the detective follows, but his vertigo slows him. But what if it doesn't? He fears his one true love is about to kill herself, so maybe in a burst of desperation he overcomes his fear and is right behind her as she enters the bell tower where he would then see the murderer-husband with his unconcious bride dressed exactly like the girl he's following. The thing is, the murderer in real life cannot be certain that the detective will poop out on the climb. And if the detective gets just one glimpse, than the jig is up.

So anyway, the "suicide" occurs and the shattered detective makes his way down instead of maybe continuing his way up. Meanwhile, all the tourists are attracted to the mission and its bell tower to see what's happening. Which means the murderer and his accomplice are stuck in the bell tower for hours while the police look around and the body is removed. During this time, none of the police go up to look at the bell tower for evidence or a suicide note. None of the witnesses mentions seeing one woman wearing this dress go into the mission with one man and then a few minutes later go into the mission with a second man. In fact, nobody comments on seeing Kim Novak at all--oh, yeah, I'm going to buy that!

So weeks pass and then one day the detective finds Kim Novak again on a San Francisco street, confirming that chance encounters in big cities do occur. She's got mousy brown hair, but he sees the resemblance right away. Now here's a woman who's an accomplice to murder, who apparently got a chunk of money for her role, but then quits bleaching her hair and stays in the same town going back to work as a secretary or salesgirl until she's spotted! Not very smart on her part! And not very smart to start dating again the only
person who can incriminate her in murder--and an ex-policeman at that! And she just goes along with him on changing her hair color and style of dress so that she looks more and more like the dead woman in the same town where the dead woman had lived. Sorry, that just doesn't make sense.

And when the detective figures it out, they go back to the same mission, climb the same bell tower--only this time, he completes the climb, which I guess shows that he's more interested in proving she's a killer than he was in keeping her from killing herself when he just thought she was suicidal. The whole thing is just a chain of the slimmest circumstances where if anyone at any point along the way had said, "Hey, don't I know you?" the whole thing would have come unwound.

The Vertigo has the killer essentially saying, "Hey, I'm going to kill my wife by hiring some woman who looks a lot like her to impersonate her for a couple of months while she gets this ex-detective with a bad case of vertigo to fall in love with her so he'll take her word that she's only a slippery step away from jumping from a high place, only he can't follow her to a high place but not too quickly so I can through my wife over and he'll tell his buddies on the force, yes, that's the woman, I tried to save her, but I couldn't climb faster." Sorry, that's such a poor plan where the killer turns over all control to the accomplice and the detective. He's got to rely on them carrying out their parts to the letter, just as he hopes, or otherwise he's going to wind up in California's gas chamber! The killer would have had a better chance of getting away with the crime if he had just taken his wife out that afternoon for a walk along one of those seaside cliffs where she "accidentally" stumbles to her death--no detective looking over your shoulder, no accomplice screwing up your plans.

This is exactly the kind of murder myster like Truman Capote chastizes the great mystery writers about in Murder by Death comedy in which he accuses them of bringing in characters at the last moment or turning up clues out of nowhere in the last chapter to make the case fit the preplanned ending instead of giving the reader a fair chance by including all the clues in the storyline so you have a chance to figure it out for yourself. First time I saw Vertigo, I got so mad at Hitchcock for laboriously building such a house of cards that the slightest breeze of reason can knock down. I don't mean this as an insult, but it seems to me the only way one can enjoy that movie is to simply close down one's thinking process and just watch it for the movement and color, as though one has never tried to solve out a puzzle before. Otherwise, the only mystery to be is why the Barbara Belle Getis character doesn't shoot Jimmy Stewart halfway through the film.

Maybe because she is unhappy she seems like a very unhappy lonely person

__________________
Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Silence of the Lambs kept me very scared. And Hitchcock movies too ..

__________________
Movie Reviews

I was stressed out watching Steven Spielberg's Duel. That movie was full of drawn out tension. It's still one of my favorites.

__________________
If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

Johann von Goethe

No, I wasn't questioning her motivation for suicide. What I'm referring to is that she drives down to this famous point under the Golden Gate Bridge. As I understand it, there is just one road in and out and nowhere else to go and apparently little to hide behind once you get there. So she drives down that road, and he follows her. She parks; he parks. She gets out of the car and jumps in the bay--now why would she do that, assuming she was really trying to kill herself as they want him to believe, knowing that someone is nearby watching her who might rescue her?

Of course, we soon realize this was just a way for her to make contact with the detective. But wait! She and the killer are counting on this same guy later not being able to follow her up the stairs because of his vertigo. But here she's counting on the detective being able to run up to that little bluff, look down into the water below and then jump in to rescue her! This is the same guy that we see earlier in the picture practically passing out when he steps on a kitchen step-ladder to reach a top shelf. Yet he's able to jump from a height into San Francisco Bay to rescue a woman he's never met but later can't climb the last few stairs to the top of the tower when he's convinced that the woman he now loves is about to leap to her death. That just doesn't make sense to me.

As for the supposed motivation for the fake suicide, the husband says his (fake) wife claims to be possessed by the spirit of a woman who killed herself 100 years earlier. In that role, Kim Novak visits the woman's grave and a place where her portrait hangs. I never cared much for that aspect of the film, either.

Jaws was intense.

Loved seven there was so much build up that just sent your heart pumping

Carlitos Way - running to catch the train

As is usually the case there a to many to list so I'll just jot down one of the most recent for me. The Matrix had me on the edge of my seat the first time I saw it. I knew nothing about the film when I went to see it and the twist was excellent! That is also the first film I ever went to see twice the first day it was out and I wasn't alone half the people in the audience were there for the second time as well and sitting there discussing a movie with complete strangers was really pretty cool.

__________________
We are both the source of the problem and the solution, yet we do not see ourselves in this light...

i gotta say probly lord of the rings for me

I think how suspenseful a movie is for you depends quite a lot on how much you already know about it. For example, Psycho is probably pretty suspenseful if you don't know what is going to happen, but if you are watching a film like that for the first time now, you probably have a pretty good idea of what is coming up next. You can still admire the movie, and it does still have some tension, but it doesn't have quite the same sense of suspense.

For it was The Ring.,

Shutter and The Ring....

Well, Hitchkok was a master of suspense, from 1928 through 1976, ending with Family Plot. His three movies that stand out Psycho, The Birds and Frenzy (most probably a pre-cursor of many modern serial killer movies). Hitchkok's big problem was his obssession with some of his leading ladies.