When Vertigo opened in May 1958, it barely broke even, critics were divided, and Alfred Hitchcock blamed the age gap between James Stewart and Kim Novak before eventually locking the film in a vault. This episode follows the story of Scottie, a San Francisco detective with acrophobia hired to follow a woman named Madeleine, and the obsession that consumes him when he meets her lookalike Judy. It examines how Hitchcock secured the French novel by Boileau and Narcejac after losing the rights to Les Diaboliques, the three writers it took to shape the script, Samuel Taylor's invention of Midge, and the decision to reveal the twist two-thirds of the way through.

The discussion explores how the production mirrored its own plot, with Vera Miles replaced by Novak and forced into a gray suit she hated, and the technical illusions behind it: matte pa ...