Plot Synopsis (continued)
While
at dinner at Ernie's (where he first saw Madeleine), Scottie ignores
Judy when he is distracted by the sight of a gray-suited woman who
looks like Madeleine. After dinner, Scottie says goodnight to Judy
at her door and asks to see her the next morning. Judy explains that
she can't leave her job, joking: "What'll I live on, my oil
wells in Texas?" but Scottie assures her that he will take care
of her. She politely refuses: "Thanks very much, but no thanks...Why
I understand, all right. I've been understanding since I was 17.
And the next step is?" Scottie wishes to be with her to see
her as much as he can: "We could just see a lot of each other." Silhouetted
in the bluish-green light from the neon sign of the hotel, Judy wonders
whether he will fall in love with her as Judy, and not as
Madeleine:
Judy: Why? Because I remind you of her? It's not
very complimentary. And nothing else?
Scottie: No.
Judy: It's not very complimentary either.
Scottie: I just want to be with you as much as I can, Judy.
Judy relents after his persistence and sincerity, and
decides that she could phone the store the next day with an excuse
to miss work.
Trying to relive his experiences with Madeleine through
Judy, an almost complete confusion of dream and reality, Scottie
- with Judy - visits the places he followed after Madeleine. The
next day, they walk around the exterior grounds of the Palace of
Fine Arts, and by the water and pillars of the Portals of the Past
described by Elster. On the lawn, Judy notices a couple kissing (a
contrast to their own platonic relationship - she later tells him: "You
don't even want to touch me"). That evening, they go dancing
at a nightclub. The following day, Scottie buys Judy a corsage, and
then suggests that they go to buy her some clothes at Ransohoffs,
an expensive salon on Post Street. Falling in love with her, he suggests
clothes - the gray suit - like Madeleine wore. He obsessively tries
to mold, remake and groom Judy into the dead woman's image. [Elster
was the first to manipulate and remake Judy into a fraudulent Madeleine
in a parallel manner.]
Knowing exactly what he wants to re-create Madeleine's
look (on the day that she 'died'), Scottie becomes preoccupied with
her clothing and appearance. He displays a detailed knowledge of
women's clothing - even the saleslady remarks about his incredible
attention to detail. His desire to design and make her into his idealized
image of Madeleine becomes a fetish. Judy protests that some of the
clothing that he is choosing is not to her liking (because it might
help him learn the truth, but she can't tell him that Madeleine never
existed!). In front of the store's mirror, their images are doubled
as they argue about his demands to remake her. Exasperated by his
strict demands for specific items, she clearly understands his motives
and fights against his demands to see her as someone else, but naively
hopes to win him on her own and make him love her for herself (rather
than as Madeleine again):
Judy: You're looking for the suit that she wore for
me. You want me to be dressed like her.
Scottie: Judy, I just want you to look nice. I know the kind of a
suit that would look well on you.
Judy: No, I won't do it.
Scottie: Judy, Judy it can't make that much difference to you. I
just want to see you...
Judy: No, I don't want any clothes. I don't want anything. I want
to get out of here.
Scottie: Judy, do this for me.
Just then, the sales lady finds the exact gray ladies
suit he has been asking for. She finally agrees to his demands (and
thereby denies her own identity) when she gives in and wears what
he requests - after he pleads with her to make him happy. After trying
more clothes - a dinner/evening dress ("short, black, with long
sleeves and a kind of a square neck") and brown shoes - they
return to his place.
In Scottie's apartment, Judy appears frightened that
Scottie loves his lost-love Madeleine more than herself, the real-life
Judy Barton. She pleads with him to love her for who she is and to
stop manipulating her and psychologically stripping her of her own
identity ("what good will it do?"). Judy insists on not
being a reminder of his lost love, also fearing that she will become
the Madeleine of the deadly plot and may be recognized. Pathetically,
she finally gives in, allowing him to exploit her and change her
appearance. Anguished, she agrees to fulfill his dream if he'll love
her:
Judy (crying and with tears in her eyes): Why are
you doing this? What, what good will it do?
Scottie: I don't know. I don't know. No good, I guess, I don't know.
Judy: I wish you'd leave me alone. I want to go away.
Scottie: You can, you know.
Judy: No, you wouldn't let me. And I don't want to go.
Scottie: Judy, Judy, I'll tell you this. These past few days have
been the first happy days I've known in a year.
Judy: I know. I know because, 'cause I remind you of her and not
even that very much.
Scottie: No, no Judy, Judy, it's you, too. There's something in you...
Judy: You don't even want to touch me.
Scottie (turning away): Yes. Yes, I do.
Judy: Couldn't you like me, just me the way I am? When we first started
out, it was so good. We had fun. And then you started in on the clothes. Well,
I'll wear the darn clothes if you want me to - if-if you'll just,
just like me.
[Through this and the next sequence, Bernard Hermann's
soundtrack plays, heavily reminiscent of Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan
and Isolde (1865), a dissonant, mournful, bittersweet musical
piece.] In front of his picture window, Scottie focuses obsessively
on her hair color and wonders about changing its color to blonde.
She cries out, anxiously: "Oh no!" He pleads with her to
make him happy by again doing what he requests:
Scottie: Judy, please, it can't matter to you!
Judy: If, if I let you change it, will that do it? If I do what you
tell me, will you love me?
Scottie: Yes, yes.
To pacify him, she obeys his wishes to be transformed.
She agrees to the hair color change, as they move over to the fire.
At the beauty salon the next day, he discusses the
hair color and styling changes with the beautician, and Judy also
has her nails and makeup redone - to match Madeleine's. He prowls
around in her hotel room waiting and longing for her transformative
arrival. When she emerges in the corridor of her hotel room and enters
her room [she is resurrected from the end of the corridor this time!],
she is wearing all the proper clothes and has the matching hair color,
but she has persisted in retaining her own identity by wearing her
hair down. Scottie criticizes her hairdo: "It should be back
from your face and pinned at the neck. I told her that. I told you
that." He begs again for Judy to pin her hair the way Madeleine
did: "Please Judy." Angry with him, but resigned to this
final change [one that signals the death of 'Judy'] because she loves
him, she goes into the bathroom to fix this last detail - to make
herself look exactly like his memory of someone else!
In
a memorable sequence, when Judy has finally made the full transformation
into Scottie's image of Madeleine, the camera focuses on Scottie
pacing around before she emerges from the bathroom. He is both hopeful,
fearful, doubtful, and yearning for his dream persona to become
real. Slowly, the bathroom door opens, and we see Scottie turn from
having his back to the camera, then to a profile view, and then to
a straight-on view. His hopeful eyes are filled with wonder and emotion
in an unforgettable image, as he (and the viewer) sees the reborn
reincarnation of his lost love. [Her appearance approximates the
exact way Madeleine emerged from his bedroom door in his apartment.]
Anxious to please him because of her love for him, Judy slowly walks
toward him like Madeleine would have. She assumes the actions, expressions
and movements of
"Madeleine" in order to please him and have him want her
- she is the fabricated image of a woman created as a hoax by Elster
to masquerade a murder plot.
We see from Scottie's point of view - the ghostly figure
appears bathed in the eerie green-tinged neon light [created by a
special diffusion camera filter] reflected from the hotel sign outside
the window. Her metaphysical, spiritual figure assumes solid shape
as she moves out of the ghostly green light and crosses the floor
to him, to surrender to him. They embrace and kiss passionately.
The camera pans and swirls completely around them as they kiss, causing
the walls of the room to appear to turn and change. Their background
surroundings dissolve and place them in the past - in the dark livery
stable in Scottie's subjective imagination - the location at San
Juan Bautista where he had attempted to cure Madeleine's hallucinations.
[The sensation must be the same distorted, dizzying but gratifying
feelings Scottie is experiencing - vertigo.] Completely lost
in the dream, overlapping fantasy and reality as Judy becomes one
with Madeleine, Scottie also surrenders to her and she clings to
him. The loving couple continue kissing passionately in front of
the pale, greenish haze of the window.
Later (after consummating their love?), they are sitting
together and relaxing in her hotel room. They have a planned dinner
at Ernie's once again ("after all, it's our place," she
reminds him and she's "suddenly hungry"). Scottie has in
mind kissing her, but she puts him off a little while with an ironic
choice of words: "Oh no, you'll muss me...It's too late. I've
got my face on." Judy is dressed in her new black evening/dinner
dress - she is completely submerged within Madeleine's identity.
She accepts her fate as the living memory of Scottie's past love.
The magical spell and transformation are broken when Judy fatally
asks Scottie to link her necklace/locket around her neck ("Help
me with this, will you?"), but forgets that the red ruby heirloom
- naturally part of the Madeleine character - was pictured in the
Carlotta portrait in the museum and had once belonged to Madeleine.
While attaching the locket, he asks: "How do you
attach this thing?" And she asks: "Can't you see?" Obviously,
Scottie does see - after a close-up view of him in profile - he notices
the necklace in the reflection in the mirror while attaching
the locket from behind. Immediately, he realizes that Judy is Madeleine
(imagined in a momentary flashback of the necklace in the portrait
and Madeleine gazing at it from a museum bench), that there was no
Madeleine, and that he had been tricked by Elster. Judy, forced to
imitate Madeleine by Elster, has now been discovered by Scottie as
not the real Madeleine but a false fantasy.
Coincidentally, she tells him that she's "ready" and
asks for him to rough her up: "First, muss me a little" after
having kept him away earlier. Scottie responds more coldly as she
hugs him: "Oh Scottie, I do have you now, don't I?" but
actually obliges her request to "muss" her up. He persuades
her that they will drive out of town and down the Peninsula for dinner
(as a way to get free of the past and to try and understand how and
why he had been tricked). After traveling many miles, and traversing
through the same tall trees they had driven through earlier, she
becomes increasingly anguished about their inevitable confrontation
with the truth:
Judy: Where are you going?
Scottie: One final thing I have to do, and then I'll be free of the
past.
By the time they arrive at the fated mission tower
where Madeleine died, it is dusk and she is frightened and nervous.
Anger and frustration mount in Scottie's mind as Judy expresses sheer
fear and hysteria mixed with shame. He demands that she "be
Madeleine for a while" so that both of them will "be free":
Judy: Scottie, why are we here?
Scottie: I told you. I have to go back into the past once more, just
once more for the last time.
Judy: Why? Why here?
Scottie: Madeleine died here, Judy.
Judy: I don't want to go. I'd rather wait here.
Scottie: No, I need you.
Judy: Why?
Scottie: I need you to be Madeleine for a while. And when it's done,
we'll both be free.
Judy: I'm scared.
At the scene of the crime, he grabs her arms and firmly
holds her - he tells her about his lost love Madeleine and their
final moments together:
No, no, I have to tell you about Madeleine now. Right
there (pointing at the green in front of the livery stable), we
stood there and I kissed her for the last time. And she said, 'If
you lose me, you'll know that I loved you and wanted to keep on
loving you.' And I said, 'I won't lose you.' But I did. And then
she turned and ran into the church...and when I followed her, it
was too late.
Then, he forcefully pulls Judy into the church to recreate
the death scene where he experienced his acrophobia and vertigo,
and where he had earlier chased after Madeleine. She cries out: "I
don't want to go in there." But he drags her into the church
(where he had chased after her) and they start up the lower
stairs of the tower together. He wants to be freed of the past, cure
his vertigo, and remove his guilt as he commands her up the vertical
tunnel of stairs:
I couldn't find her. And then I heard footsteps on
the stairs. She was running up to the tower. Right here. You see,
she was running up the stairs and through the trap door at the
top of the tower. And I tried to follow her, but I couldn't get
to the top. I tried but I couldn't get to the top. One doesn't
often get a second chance. I want to stop being haunted. You're
my second chance, Judy. You're my second chance.
Judy cries out: "Take me away." He grips
her firmly and menacingly, commanding her: "You look like Madeleine
now. Go up the stairs...Go up the stairs! Go up the stairs, Judy,
and I'll follow." Midway up the stairs, where he experienced
severe vertigo and saw Madeleine's body fall in the window, he continues
to brutalize her, telling her that he knows the truth of her deception: "The
necklace Madeleine [Judy], that was the slip. I remember the necklace."
He insists on climbing the winding, claustrophobic
staircase all the way to the top of the tower, although Judy cautions: "You
can't, you're afraid."
Scottie believes he can make it: "Now we'll see. We'll see. This
is my second chance." Then, he accuses her of the worst part of
the plot, explaining how he now understands what was pulled on him
by Elster. While he berates her, he almost strangles her on the stairs.
Then, she admits her duplicitous role in the plot:
Scottie: But you knew that day that I wouldn't be
able to follow you, didn't you? Who was up there when you got up
there? Elster and his wife?...Yes, and she was the one who died!
The real wife, not you! You were the copy. You were the counterfeit,
weren't you? Was she dead or alive when you?
Judy: Dead. He'd broken her neck.
Scottie: He'd broken her neck. He wasn't taking any chances was he?
So when you got up there, he pushed her off the tower. But it was
you that screamed. Why did you scream?
Although forced to confess [thereby assuming 'Judy's'
identity during the confession], she tries to convince him that she
herself was a victim and that she wanted out of the crime - "I
wanted to stop it." But he thinks she may be acting and tricking
him again. Scottie realizes that she was rehearsed and trained and
made up to be a fraud in the same way that he had rehearsed and trained
her. Although he thought he could find freedom and be a "free"
man after finding Madeleine again, he now realizes that he was the
actual victim that was manipulated and used by Elster: [There are four victims
of men in the film - the real Madeleine, Judy, Carlotta, and Scottie
himself.]
You played the wife very well, Judy. He made you
over, didn't he? He made you over just like I made you over.
Only better. Not only the clothes and the hair. But the looks and
the manner and the words. And those beautiful phony trances. And
you jumped into the Bay, didn't you? I'll bet you're a wonderful
swimmer, aren't you? Aren't you? Aren't you? And then what
did he do? Did he train you? Did he rehearse you?
Did he tell you exactly what to do and what to say?
You were a very apt pupil, too, weren't you? You were a very apt
pupil. Why did you pick on me? Why me?...I was the set-up.
I was the set-up, wasn't I? I was a made-to-order witness.
Scottie suddenly realizes that his vertigo is not affecting
him and he has made it to the top. For a moment, he forgets about
the questioning and gloats to himself: "I made it. I made it." Climbing
higher into the tower through the trap door to the actual "scene
of the crime" in the belfry, he drags her up as her feet go
limp and unresistant. With powerful intensity, he questions her about
the betrayal and she cowers from him. Using two key words from earlier
- freedom and power - he bitterly explains how he learned
of the deception as the story of her collusion and sinister relationship
with Elster is revealed (as a mistress and accomplice in another
denial of her own identity). He chides her for becoming "sentimental" and
keeping Carlotta's necklace. [Judy's game of betrayal and subsequent
abandonment by Elster parallel what happened to Carlotta Valdes]:
Scottie: So this is where it happened. The two of
you hid back there and waited for it to clear, and then you sneaked
down and drove into town, is that it? And then, you were his girl,
huh? Well, what happened to ya? What happened to ya? Did he ditch
ya? Oh Judy, with all of his wife's money and all that freedom and
that power and he ditched you. What a shame! But he knew
he was safe. He knew you couldn't talk. Did he give you anything?
Judy: Just some money.
Scottie: And the necklace, Carlotta's necklace, there was where
you made your mistake, Judy. You shouldn't keep souvenirs of a killing.
You shouldn't have been, you shouldn't have been that sentimental.
And then, after Scottie's voice has broken, his rage
also breaks. As she cringes in a corner of the tower, he cries out
with bitterness and tells her how much he really had loved her: "I
loved you so, Maddy [a combination of Madeleine and Judy]." Judy
anguishes and pleads for forgiveness, explaining how she willingly
endangered herself by getting emotionally involved with him after
the murder. With great sincerity and commitment, she professes that
she still loves him even though he was her victim:
Judy: I was safe when you found me. There was nothing
that you could prove. When I saw you again, I couldn't run away.
I loved you so. I walked into danger, let you change me because
I loved you and I wanted you. Oh, Scottie, oh Scottie please. You
love me. Please keep me safe, please...
Scottie: It's too late. It's too late. [These words are an echo of
a few of Madeleine's final words.] There's no bringing her back.
Experiencing intense feelings of both repulsion (hate)
and attraction (love), he softens when she insists that she loves
him and falls into his arms for a passionate embrace and kiss - they
renew their twisted love. Then, suddenly the footsteps of a black-clad
figure in the shadows startle Judy. [In Judy's mind, the words "bringing
her back" are fulfilled.] Judy backs away from Scottie gasping: "Oh,
no!" The dark, shadowy figure says: "I hear voices." Terrified,
thinking and believing she is seeing the ghost of the murdered Madeleine
(or the reincarnation of the ghostly doomed mother Carlotta Valdes),
Judy recoils, steps and falls backward through an opening in the
tower and plummets to her own death (off-screen) in an emotionally-shattering
climax. The figure, actually a nun from the mission, crosses herself
and murmurs the last words of the film: "God have mercy."
The nun [a Mother Superior or virginal Sister of Mary?]
pulls the bell rope and rings the mission bell. As the bell tolls
(signalling not salvation but eternal damnation), Scottie emerges
from the arched window of the tower onto the belfry ledge. He stares
down in horror at her body far below - stunned, open-mouthed, shocked
and glassy-eyed with his arms slightly away from his body. He is
cured of his vertigo, but totally destroyed by his other delusions
and burgeoning sorrow. Will he join her in a suicidal leap, or again
go mad? Tragically loving and losing the same woman twice, repeating
the pattern he had intended to break, the scene fades to black.
------ SUPPLEMENTAL ENDING
A supplemental ending to the original film (dubbed
the "foreign censorship ending") provided just punishment
for the guilty Elster. Hitchcock was required to shoot an extended
ending to satisfy the needs of the foreign censorship committee.
After the conclusion of the film above, Midge is positioned by the
side of her radio intently listening to a report of the search for
Elster in Europe:
Elster was last heard of living in Switzerland but
is now thought to be residing somewhere in the South of France.
Captain Hansen states that he anticipates no trouble in having
Elster extradited once he is found.
Another news flash reports locally that in Berkeley,
three University of California sophomores were caught "in an
embarrassing position"
when discovered by police as they led a cow up the steps of a campus
building. She abruptly turns off the radio and turns as Scottie enters
her apartment and blankly looks at her with his hands in his pockets.
He strides over to the window - darkened by nightfall - as she pours
drinks for both of them. She wordlessly gives one of the glasses to
Scottie and then sits down, while he gazes mindlessly out the window.
The scene fades to black. |