OT: See Vertigo for Free on 9/30/23 at the Mission Where it Was Filmed

On Saturday, September 30, 2023 there will be a FREE screening of Vertigo -- AT the Mission San Juan Bautista where the movie was filmed in 1957/1958 for 1958 release.

They will be screening the movie on that big grass field across which James Stewart chased Kim Novak in Vertigo(and Alma had Hitch cut that shot down to show less of "Kim Novak's chunky legs.") Hah!

8:00 pm free showing.

Tour tickets on sale at the Plaza Hotel (where the inquiry was filmed where official Henry Jones handed Stewart his head) or by calling 831-623-4881 for more information.

"Bring lawn chairs and blankets. Snacks on sale at the stable"(where Stewart showed Novak that wooden horse -- which is still IN that stable, today.)

There will also be a tour of the grounds, I think from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm. I'm sure about the 5:00 pm finish, but not of the 3:30 pm start. Memory faded.

Why do I know all this?

Because a few days ago...I was there. Every few years, I have reason to be at the California coast and I make sure to drop by the Mission San Juan Bautista , down the pennisula from San Francisco and not too far from Hitchcock's "second home" in Santa Cruz, where he lived from the 40s to the 70s(he sold it before his death, however).

I've always figured that, rather than using a location scout to find the Mission San Juan Baustista grounds, Hitchcock had likely been visiting there for years as a Catholic and a nearby resident.

Those grounds are pretty much untouched today. The green field(square) is still there, open and empty. The stable is there. The Plaza Hotel is there.

And the church is there but -- famously -- missing that famous bell tower entirely.

Think of all the people who have come from all around the world over the decades to see "the famous Vertigo bell tower." And its not there. So vitally important to the plot(in two scenes) -- and its not there.

Methinks Hitchcock knew his script called for a bell tower, but that the best church, grounds, stable, and hotel were all in that one location at San Juan Bautista. So he just had the tower added via one of his famous(and somewhat fake, but who cares?) matte shots. (See also: Mount Rushmore, Arbogast's fall in process, and all of The Birds.)

I like to walk those grounds starting where Hitchcock did in two "rhyming shots" about an hour apart in the movie. The shots are of the long row of arched pillars that front the church and give us a POV on the green square (and then a camera move to the stable? I can't remember.)

Standing on those hallowed grounds, Vertigo sure comes back in all its glory. As does, in a different way, the year in which it was released -- 1958, in a less populated America during a comparatively quiet time in its history. One senses Vertigo and 1958 as "one and the same in time and space." In Hitchcock's case, he would just keep going(with Bernard Herrmann and Saul Bass on board twice more together) for NXNW in 1959 and Psycho in 1960.

I've always ranked Psycho and North by Northwest(in that order) as my two favorite films, but Vertigo isn't all that far removed from them. Yes, its "greatest film of all time" status might be subject to debate(and no longer the case at Sight and Sound), but it has Hitchcock, Herrmann and Bass, and James Stewart perfectly ending HIS Hitchcock career as Cary Grant would one year later.

As a thriller, Vertigo isn't in the same place(NOT class) as NXNW and Psycho. As a moving and powerful human experience...it might just be a little better.

I sure wish I could have stayed longer to see Vertigo at the Mission next week.

Perhaps someone else around here can.