After just wrapping up SIFF (and my coverage is almost finished - save for transcribing and posting one more interview with a filmmaker), I haven't really thought I had much interest heading back to a dark theater for at least another week or two.

Then I found out the Grand Illusion is screening one of my very favorite films next week.

Vertigo is widely considered to be Alfred Hitchcock's best movie - an assessment I would surely agree with. Even after 50 years (!), it was named the best mystery film this week, according to the American Film Institute.

Jimmy Stewart (a legendary actor I could take or leave in the movies not directed by Hitch) plays "Scottie" Ferguson, a retired cop with acrophobia hired to follow Kim Novak's Madeleine. Along the way, he falls for her while not just blurring the lines between love and lust but between lust and obsession.

I don't know if anyone has ever looked more radiant on screen in any film as Novak did when she first appeared in this movie (and I only saw it on VHS) and Stewart is perfectly cast - pulling off being naive and creepy. It is also a beautifully filmed movie that romanticizes San Francisco.

Vertigo is a treasure of a film and many good wishes to the people at the Grand Illusion for showing this masterpiece and giving us the rare chance to see this film on the big screen.

{Vertigo plays at the Grand Illusion Cinema [1403 NE 50th St.] Friday, June 20 through Thursday, June 26 at 6 and 8:30pm, with additional 3:30pm screenings on Saturday, June 21 and Sunday, June 22.}