It took the intervention of a band of lunatic French cinephiles with the scandalous suggestion that Hitchcock, the popular entertainer, might be a serious artist – and gradually won the non-auteurist heathen to their creed. In 1958, John McCarten of the New Yorker lambasted Vertigo as “far-fetched nonsense”, while Arthur Knight of Saturday Review crabbed that “technical facility is being exploited to gild pure dross”. As for Sight & Sound, editor Penelope Houston’s verdict was sniffy at best: “One is agreeably used to Hitchcock repeating his effects, but this time he is repeating himself in slow motion.”– Peter Matthews, BFI.