Best Vertigo Tour

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) offers us a dazzlingly beautiful, dangerously precipitous San Francisco obsessed with its own memories and prevalent phantoms. Much of it was filmed at actual locations across the city, lending the film the cachet of authenticity and the locations a lingering hint of mythology. Begin your tour at Mission Dolores (16th Street and Dolores), where Kim Novak's mad spiritual forebear Señorita Carlotta is buried. Then head north to Union Square (Geary and Stockton), one-time site of Ransohoff's clothiers, Podesta Baldocchi florists, and the Argosy bookstore. Proceed on up to the Brocklebank Apartments (Mason and Sacramento), Novak's luxurious home base, and then over to 847 Montgomery (at Jackson), one-time address of the film's culinary fulcrum, Ernie's. Scoot up Columbus to Lombard, and right at the northwest corner of Lombard and Jones is James Stewart's apartment in the film. Now head west to the Palace of Fine Arts (Baker and Beach), setting for one of the film's eerier moments, and keep going all the way out to Fort Point under the Golden Gate Bridge, where Stewart saves Novak from a rather picturesque death by drowning. Conclude your tour with a jaunt through the Presidio and Lincoln Park to the Palace of the Legion of Honor, where art continues to inspire madness and time stands still.