Last autumn this reviewer was lucky enough to see Kim Novak, among the last of the 1950s superstars, on stage at Venice International Film Festival to receive a Golden Lion and to introduce this intriguing, if formally conservative, documentary about her extraordinary career. There was a sense of valediction in the presentation and in the film itself. Of a last hurrah.
Six months later, apparently still lively, Novak is in the news for objecting to the casting of Sydney Sweeney in a film about her relationship with Sammy Davis jnr. It would be improper to make any raised-eyebrow remarks about her assertion that the younger actor is “too sexy” for the part. But, among other things, Kim Novak’s Vertigo confirms quite how astute and connected this 93-year-old legend remains. It should give us all a bit of hope.
What of that title? Alexandre O Philippe, director of an excellent film on the shower scene from Psycho, originally wanted to focus the current project on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (now the director’s most celebrated film), but he was persuaded to make a more general study of Novak’s life and work.
We can reasonably assume that “Vertigo” also refers to the effect of staring back at an extraordinary career as it recedes into distant perspective. Well might she place hand on brow and have a little sit down to steady herself.
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The body of the film comprises a wide-ranging conversation between film-maker and star that takes us from birth in Chicago, the child of Czech immigrants, to work as a promotional model and, eventually, a contract with Columbia Pictures, in Hollywood. Then success with Picnic, in 1955, and Pal Joey, in 1957. A year after that she embarked on the incomparably beautiful nightmare that is Vertigo.
Philippe brings few stylistic flourishes to the film, but the fascinating conversation, punctuated by delving into her personal archives, should be more than enough to satisfy the serious cinephile. She is kinder about Hitchcock than some of his other female leads. She is realistic about the rigours of the studio system. “You start to lose who you are,” she says, reflecting on the string of roles she took in the 1950s.
The Kim Novak of 2026 seems pretty sure of who she is: not Sweeney, for starters. (No harm to that sometimes misused actor.)
In cinemas from Friday, April 3rd
