Ultra Swank - Retro Adventures

A Tour of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo Filming Locations

Written by Chris Alm • May 22nd, 2012

Klara lives in San Francisco, very near the Hotel Vertigo, so she couldn’t resist putting together this video for Alfred Hitchcock and ‘Vertigo‘ fans. Klara explains that it made sense to make a video project out of it and track several of the locations from the film – especially for folks who aren’t able to travel here and see these locations up close, and in person.

She discovered some surprising new things along the way about the location shots in ‘Vertigo‘, particularly how the winding stairway in the Hotel Vertigo (which was once The Empire Hotel) were actually the design inspiration for the famous wooden stairs inside the church. Hitchcock saw the stairs in the hotel and asked for them to be built exactly the same way for the church tower scenes. And the stairs in the hotel are still the same way today.

Watch the video and find out more neat things about some of the locations used in Vertigo and how they look some 50 years later.

Chris Alm

Christopher founded Ultra Swank in 2005. Has a crush on mid-century graphic design, defunct airlines, Disneyland and the Century 21 Exposition. Is a collector of easy listening music from the 60s and 70s and a Swedish expat living in Barcelona, Spain.

Find out more about Chris Alm

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