Review Detail

Ok, just a quick one: this review I may amend if an update comes around. I appreciate recordwrangler’s attempt here. It’s a simple edit, but, knowing Vertigo so well with and without the letter writing scene, everything for me hinged on the quality of the single edit that was made.

If any edit takes place for this film, to excise the letter scene, we need a quick fade-to-black, and a quick fade back in Ernie’s.

Or, another dreamy dissolve. Vertigo thrives on its dissolve shots and an occasional quick fade. There are no quick edits from one setting to the next.

This edit also makes the edit at a most awkward moment (the back of Judy’s head). No professional editor would choose to cut the film there.

I’ve long envisioned the edit to be:

Judy: uh-hun
Scottie: ok

Dissolve the shot from Scottie closing the door of the hotel room to Ernie’s. No cut back to Judy, no splice. Fade to black or dissolve. It fits with the cinematic language of what Hitch was going for.

The merits of both versions of Vertigo are so worth exploring I won’t even go there now. The source here uses the toned-down remaster, and it looks and sounds lovely. But the one edit made pulls me right out of the film.