James Stewart in Vertigo

The plot of Vertigo runs on two axles, and the moment Judy divulges to us (but not Scottie) via voiceover that she is indeed Madeleine, and had conspired with Gavin on a spousal killing that involved Scottie as a hapless witness, suddenly the tale of a man’s subjugation by his own nervous system and then his broken heart gives way to a tale of a woman’s subjugation by that same man’s rampant id. He demands that she submit to a full makeover, wearing clothes, jewelry, and hair dye that render her the living image of his (presumed) lost love; “It can’t matter to you!” is his single-minded reply to her pleas to retain her identity. Protesting but ultimately yielding to each new degradation, the guilt-ridden and by now besotted (or Stockholm Syndrome–afflicted) Judy finally speaks the shattering words, “If I do what you tell me, will you love me?”—and, when he answers in the affirmative, “All right then, I’ll do it. I don’t care anymore about me.”

The disturbing nature of Stewart’s performance—his fourth and last for Hitchcock—doesn’t manifest itself fully until after the film’s 90-minute mark. Up to that point, he presents as an amiable ’50s everyman who casually dismisses psychiatry (until he needs it himself) and pushes stiff drinks as “medicine.” But in hindsight, the clues were there all the time. He thinks nothing of both Gavin and a local historian using the words “freedom” and “power” as they pine for the days of old San Francisco, where men could dispose of women when they grew tired of them. Later, on unraveling Gavin and Judy’s scheme to murder Gavin’s actual wife, he spits the same words back in her face: “Oh, Judy! When he had all her money, and the freedom and the power, he ditched you? What a shame!” There’s also the elliptically edited sequence in which he rescues “Madeleine” from the Bay, brings her back to his apartment, and removes her wet clothes while believing her unconscious. Whatever he does or doesn’t do to her, he tucks her into bed entirely nude with a robe tossed at her feet, instead of draping her in the robe beforehand. We’re reminded of the boyish, prewar Stewart assuring Katharine Hepburn in The Philadelphia Story (1940) that he took no advantage of her after their drunken night swim because she was “a little the worse—or the better—for wine, and there are rules about that.” It’s very possible Scottie doesn’t play by these rules, especially as he awkwardly admits to having enjoyed the experience—which becomes even creepier upon learning that Judy is really “a strong swimmer” who was awake for the whole ordeal.

To be sure, audiences had seen glimmers of Stewart’s dark side prior to Vertigo. When his long-suffering building-and-loan officer faces undue scandal and imprisonment near the end of It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), he lashes out at his absent-minded uncle, clings frantically to his bewildered wife, and considers jumping off an icy bridge to his death. In his psychological Westerns for director Anthony Mann—most notably Winchester ’73 (1950) and The Man from Laramie (1955)—he suffers horrific torture and pursues violent revenge. And in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954), his globe-trotting photographer, beached in his apartment with a broken leg, obsessively spies on his neighbors, only beginning to take his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) seriously when she participates in his fixation at the risk of her life—a more lighthearted dry run of Vertigo’s themes. Roger Ebert, who spent time with the actor and World War II veteran on various film sets, observed: “He was patient, humorous, modest, smart. [But] there was an edge to him—no one could fly 22 combat missions over Germany and be merely a nice guy.”