Page 22 - FILM STUDIOS CROPPED

Kim Novak
Asex symbol at 21, Kim
Novak could become one
all over again aged 64
thanks to the release of a
restored version of Vertigo, arguably Hitchcock’s best thriller.
When it was first released in 1958, the film disappointed critics and baffled audiences. But in the intervening years, it has become an acknowledged classic, thanks in no small part to Novak’s carnal per- formance in dual roles as mysterious ‘Madeleine’ and bra-less ‘Judy’.
“The whole movie was,” recalls Novak, “about changing someone into someone else and I identified totally with it because I felt manip- ulated from day one in Hollywood. I was always fighting for my right to have my own opinions because so many directors were telling you how to approach a character and how to think even before you had a chance to come in and talk about it.”
Hitchcock was, of course, different from most other directors. On a film where he oversaw the most complex visual effects, the subtlest camera moves and even pre-planned sound effects in great detail, his influence permeated everything. This even included the stiff, restric- tive costume that Novak would wear as Madeleine, an outfit which the actress felt would inhibit her performance.
Apparently Novak couldn’t believe that Hitch would want her wearing a grey suit with her hair dyed blonde for the Technicolor cam- era. Hitchcock, of course, knew exactly what he wanted: she was to look as if she’d just stepped out of the San Francisco fog - a woman of mystery and illusion. And despite Novak’s reservations, that’s the way it looked, triumphantly. Novak, a loan-out to Hitchcock from her con- tract at Columbia where she’d achieved screen goddess status after films like Pushover, Picnic and Pal Joey, has always been synonymous with glamour. And whether she knows it or not, this star still has it in buckets and spades.
“That’s not really part of my life any more,” she smiles. “I’ve let it go. I don’t look in the mirror in the same way now. But when I was getting into promoting Vertigo again, I thought, considering the fact that I really haven’t been working onhowIlook,it’snottoobad.”
RESTORING VERTIGO
Of the many problems encountered by film restorers James Katz and Robert Harris when they began their work on Vertigo, the most formidable was the obsolete format on which it was shot.
Hitchcock and his cameraman Robert Burks had utilised the VistaVision process, Paramount’s wide-screen alternative to 20th Century Fox’s CinemaScope. So apart
from the inherent problems with piecing
together dirty, degraded, torn and shrunken film stock, there was the task of turning a 1:85 VistaVision negative into a 70mm print.
It’s the latest remarkable collabora- tion from a team who have previously restored Lawrence Of Arabia, My Fair Lady and Spartacus as well as other Hitchcock classics like The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rear Window and Rope. ■ HAROLD GOFF
Photo: Kim Novak with James Stewart in Vertigo
EXPOSURE • 19
facing the camera