Creeeeeeepy... *SPOILERS*

Worse than Norman Bates?

First off, I think Jimmy Stewart is wonderful in this. Marlon Brando would have radiated too much sexual energy for this story: Scotty's fixation is romantic and idealized not sexual. Gregory Peck (except for Atticus Finch) was pretty cold on screen. I think Jimmy Stewart has a natural likeability that makes Scotty's fixation less creepy. Audiences are willing to go along (to a certain extent) with him on his quest. It is only when he sees the necklace and realizes Judy and Elster used him as a patsy, that he becomes quite cruel.

A number of Hitchcock's romantic male leads are not exactly warm and fuzzy. Remember how mean Cary Grant was to Ingrid Bergman in Notorious? He ropes her into spying, practically throws her at Claude Rains, and then is bitter when she entertains Rains' marriage proposal. Hitchcock's male leads are not to be romantically betrayed!! Also, Cary Grant is pretty cool, if not mean, to Grace Kelly through much of To Catch a Thief. She's on to him as the Cat Burgler (which he had been at one time), and is a strong woman with great sexual confidence, and while he's attracted to her, he really is resistant to her, too. I think, although I'm not a psychologist, that Hitchcock suffered from a Virgin/Whore Complex in how he viewed women, and it's interesting to see how he was able to work through his own hang ups and romantic fantasies in his movies.

Usually I roll my eyeballs very hard when I see someone say a man in an old film wasn't behaving properly, but this timd I agree. This is one of the problems I have connecting with Vertigo in the way I expected to, considering I love Hitchcock, suspense, stories about doubles, and opportunities to think about deeper human questions in relation to a story.

Now I've only seen it twice but I just don't find Stewart as compelling as most. Or Novak for that matter. I agree that Stewart is a creep for the reasons you mentioned but also because of how he treats Midge.

I also think, as Hitch himself speculated, that Stewart is too old for the role. But more importantly he's too square. Jimmy Stewart is just not as cool as, say, Cary Grant. His pants are up to his moobs, for crying out loud.

Do I think it's overrated? Yes. I will keep trying to get it though. Maybe the BFI book will help. The more I think about it, the less I care for it. Which is blowing my mind a bit because the first time I saw it I loved it.

As for Kim, she just doesn't do it for me. I'm a gay man so it's not sexual. She just isn't fun to watch. Maybe it's the characters.

He was certainly an obsessive individual, but regardless of how modern rom coms choose to idealize love as a concept for us, romantic love tends to always be driven largely by lust. Whenever we think of a desirable partner we have in mind, the first notable thing we picture is always their looks. Granted, most of us are smart enough to know that there are other attributes needed to maintain a long-term, successful relationship but on our most basic, primordial level, we just want to fuck.

Jimmie Stewart's character in this is just a more extreme example of that. He's a man obsessed with recreating the image of a lost love, in the hope that he would be able to recreate those same feelings he felt upon being with Madeleine. As much as people tend to find this behavior creepy and gross, it's actually nowhere near as uncommon as people think. People do desperate things to cling on to their memory of a lost love all the time. It isn't healthy, but it isn't abnormal either.

This movie is simply honest in how it chooses to portray that love can just as easily turn a sane, rational individual into a hopeless, psychological wreck as it can bring about joy and happiness. For every man and woman happily in love together, there are about 20 or 30 out there that are just like Scottie, pining for lost love.