I don't feel like JS was too old for Scotty at all... - Vertigo (1958) Discussion

[–] gory_reer 7 years ago

I'm pretty sure it's the flip side that irks some folks: Stewart apparently being too old and craggy looking for Novak's character to fall so much in love with. It's an issue commonly expressed in many movies where there's quite a disparity of outward attractiveness between two sides of a couple. Stewart's age is focused on so much as I imagine people would have considered him handsome enough earlier in his life.

Certainly isn't my view of the couple, in real life there's plenty people who are head over heels with someone less conventionally attractive than themselves so it should hardly be unbelievable in a film. I guess some folks think it's a decision who you love!

reply

[–] otter 7 years ago

On first viewing, it seems that yes, Scotty isn't someone Madeline would actually fall in love with.

But when you've seen the film enough times to know that Madeline doesn't exist and it's really Judy being in love, it begins to make perfect sense! Judy is desperate, and she spends her life letting any man with a little money to spend pick her up and use her, Elster is Stewart's age so it's clear she isn't picky. Under Madeline's fake love for Scotty is Judy's attraction for the first kind, decent, romantic man she's met in ages. In the second half of the film, she's bound to Scotty by both the desire to be with a good man for once, and the OVERWHELMING GUILT she feels when she realized that Elster's plot has driven him mad. That's why she stays through all the crazy... it all adds up.

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

reply

[–] l-allred 7 years ago

Interesting take. Something to think about.

reply

[–] liscarkat (16496) 4 years ago

My wife is pretty, with long athletic legs, a nice butt, and large breasts. She is significantly younger than me. I am not very attractive at all, and I'm also not wealthy. It happens.

reply

[–] marialucia1985 7 years ago

I personally thought they looked great together.

Tons of chemistry between them, that you forget or don't even realise that there was a 25 year age gap.

Stewart was 49 and looked good, with those lovely, piercing blue eyes! Certainly not too
old to play a romantic lead.

Pity he was critised as being unsuitable.

reply

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I agree!

reply

[–] l-allred 7 years ago

Just my humble opinion...I DO think he was unsuitable for the role...but not because he looked too old.

He'd almost always played good guys, up to that point...decent, honorable guys, straightforward and uncomplicated.

Here he's playing a man who's morally ambiguous...and not very likeable. (Spoilers from this point on) He gets a man killed who is trying to save him, and decides he's just going to be a bum for a while, in reaction. He strings along an old girlfriend, who clearly still cares for him, to cadge sympathy and free drinks. He agrees to help an old school chum by following his wife to find out what's going on with her, and ends up falling for her and making a play for her. He ultimately fails her, by not stopping her when she apparently takes her own life. He goes into a mental hospital for a while as a result. He encounters a young woman who resembles the wife. We find out before he does, that she was the bait portion of a bait-and-switch murder scheme his old buddy had devised, in order to do away with his wife. But before he figures it out, he pressures her into complying with a disturbing obsession he has, by dressing her up as the dead woman before he will touch her or be with her. And he gets this girl killed in the end, as well.

He was playing drastically against type...against the type of Jimmy Stewart performance his fans, or indeed the movie-going public at large, had come to not only expect, but to rely upon. And maybe that's why no one was able to accept him in this role...and why the film didn't do very well when it was first released.

reply

[–] RobbieCalifornia 7 years ago

I have never had a problem accepting him in this role. Thought he was perfect for it. Stewart was about 50 at the time, Novak maybe 22. It's a big age difference but it happens all the time.

Never even occurred to me he was too old for her. I can't think of an actor of that era who would have done better.

reply

[–] otter 7 years ago

Oh yes, this movie was a big change of pace for Stewart, and I actually wonder if that's one of the reasons the film failed upon its initial release. 1958 audiences expected to see Stewart be the charming, aw-shucks, likeable good guy in every film he made, and that's how he is for the first half of the film,it must have been a horrific shock to see him go out of his mind and get into a seriously twisted relationship with Judy.

Of course Stewart probably loved the change of pace, for all his well-known mannerisms he had a lot of range - he could do comedy, drama, suspense, romance, etc., and here he proved he could descend into madness.

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

reply

[–] mecormany 7 years ago

I'm going to have to assume those of you who think all Stewart played were wholesome aw-shucks types didn't see any of the fine westerns he did with Anthony Mann in the early 50s. He went to some pretty dark places of the human psyche in those and did it very well. From Winchester '73 in 1950 through The Man From Laramie in 1955 he and Mann teamed up for five Westerns that were a real departure from what people had expected from Westerns up to that time. This wasn't his first playing of a man with issues or problems.

reply

[–] lalinea97 7 years ago

They really should have left out the bit of information that he and Midge were a couple in college. Jesus, I don't know how old that actress was, but she sure as hell didn't look like she went to college with JS.

The falling in love with KN part worked fine.

reply

[–] otter 7 years ago

I agree.

Some people say "But he could have gone to college on the GI bill", but that's a stretch. Stewart was 50 in 1958, and would have been a young man during WWII and probably would have served. He would have been 35-40 when demobbed, but he actually would have been old enough to get in four years of college BEFORE the US entered the war. And since he had a "private income", the assumption is that he came from the kind of well-off family that would have sent their son to college, even during a depression.

They should have just had a line about those two being involved for a very long time.

“Seventy-seven courses and a regicide, never a wedding like it!

reply

[–] NotoriousRio (12927) 4 years ago

It was just like Rear Window for me, Stewart looked far too old for his leading lady, if they had dyed his hair or dressed him a little younger that would of helped.

reply

[–] liscarkat (16496) 4 years ago

My wife is WAY better looking than me, totally out of my league, and I'm not even rich. It happens.

reply

[–] greenbudgie (2355) 4 years ago

Kim Novak relaxed with James Stewart on the set of 'Bell Book and Candle.' The were lain together touching toes. Nothing carnal. Just an older man and a young woman feeling comfortable together. This is according to an interview that Kim Novak gave.

There is nothing about the 'Vertigo' story that suggests that Scotty should be played by a younger man. James Stewart's age is OK for this.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

What's interesting is that James Stewart in Vertigo was 50...younger than Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood today(as I type this.)

But then Stewart saw action in WWII and likely came back prematurely aged. Plus, I believe he is wearing a toupee in Vertigo, but, smartly, a gray one.

reply

[–] greenbudgie (2355) 4 years ago

I can't say I ever noticed James Stewart wearing a toupee in this or any other movie. But it seems you are right. In fact he seems to have been wearing a gray toupee throughout the 1950s from what I've now read.

You are right to say that his WW2 would have aged him. And perhaps started off his hair loss.

I've also read that James Stewart was so eager to play Roger Thornhill in NxNW. But Hitchcock went against it. Apparently Hitchcock blamed the relatively poor Box Office for 'Vertigo' on Stewart's aged looks and so no more Jimmy.

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I can't say I ever noticed James Stewart wearing a toupee in this or any other movie. But it seems you are right. In fact he seems to have been wearing a gray toupee throughout the 1950s from what I've now read.

---

John Wayne also wore a toupee..definitely from the 60's on, but maybe as early as the 50's.

I have seen photographs of both James Stewart and John Wayne without their toupees and...we should be glad for toupees. With some hair over their ears, both men just suddenly looked like "grandpa."

Modernly, I think John Travolta usually wears toupees for his roles(and often bad ones -- his hair looks like a plastic cap), but sometimes goes bald.

Bruce Willis famously elected to go full "cueball" some years back...I think it rather limited his ability to play a wide range of characters(like the small town construction company owner in the late Paul Newman picture Nobody's Fool, that guy HAD to have hair, and he did.)

I wonder if any of our other modern male stars wear toupees?

---

You are right to say that his WW2 would have aged him. And perhaps started off his hair loss.

---

Its my guess...and I think it has been written of elsewhere. I don't think he personally saw much WWII action, but he had to order young pilots into the sky to battle...and not all of them came back. Stewart reportedly came back from WWII unsure if he even wanted to make movies anymore. But he did.

As for graying...look at some of our modern Presidents in the US. They "go in" with dark hair...they come out with gray hair and worry wrinkles.

--

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I've also read that James Stewart was so eager to play Roger Thornhill in NxNW. But Hitchcock went against it. Apparently Hitchcock blamed the relatively poor Box Office for 'Vertigo' on Stewart's aged looks and so no more Jimmy.

---

The story makes sense. James Stewart in "Bell Book and Candle" pretty much had a "Cary Grant role" and looked wrong in THAT one.

Roger Thornhill is meant to be urban and urbane, suave...and a real Ladie's Man. If Grant had not played Roger, I could see the role going to Rock Hudson, William Holden or Frank Sinatra before James Stewart. MGM wanted Gregory Peck for the role, but Hitchcock wanted Grant. Still, I could see Peck before I could see Stewart.

Interesting: as it turned out, and whether he looked too old or not, James Stewart was considered for ONE MORE Hitchcock role AFTER Vertigo.

The film was tentatively titled "The Blind Man" and would have starred Stewart as a blind man who gets new eyes transplanted into his head. He can see -- but he can also see memories of the dead donor's murder. And he hunts down the killer.

Walt Disney killed "The Blind Man." Hitchcock wanted to film the climax at...Disneyland...and Disney told the press: "I will not let the man who made Psycho make a movie at Disneyland."

I assume that Stewart's blind man was not a romantic role...

reply

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Kim Novak relaxed with James Stewart on the set of 'Bell Book and Candle.' The were lain together touching toes. Nothing carnal. Just an older man and a young woman feeling comfortable together. This is according to an interview that Kim Novak gave.

There is nothing about the 'Vertigo' story that suggests that Scotty should be played by a younger man. James Stewart's age is OK for this.

---

Looks like I didn't answer this one, months ago.

Movieland gossip can be fun, but I realize that without proof, its just gossip.

I always figured we ONLY got proof when alleged affairs went public and became marriages(or relationships.) Eddie Fisher leaving Debbie Reynolds for Liz Taylor. Liz Taylor leaving Eddie Fisher for Richard Burton. Brad Pitt leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie. Etc.

Alfred Hitchcock made a rather bold statement(that I don't much believe) to an interviewer: "All leading men and leading ladies continue their on-stage love affairs off stage. Without exception."

It was the words "without exception" that seem suspect to me. ALL of them, Hitch? ALL of your on-sceen couples?

That said, Kirk Douglas bragged that he had affairs with ALL of his leading ladies. As part of the process of getting into the role. Maybe, maybe not. Everybody's dead.

I will say that James Stewart seems the least likely to have had affairs after his marriage. As an unmarried bachelor in Hollywood...sure. But after? I doubt it.

Finally: "It is what it is." A lot of famous male movie stars -- Steve McQueen, Sean Connery, and, yes, Kirk Douglas come to mind -- had "deals" with their wives. Affairs and one-night stands were fine, as long as the husbands didn't talk about it and STAYED with their wives ("The Queen of the Harem.") One (at least) FEMALE movie star had the same deal with her husband: Shirley MacLaine(she confirmed this in several autobios.)

reply

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

Agreed.

reply