While pursuing a criminal across the rooftops of San Francisco, detective
Scottie Ferguson slips and finds himself dangling from the gutter
of a tall building. A colleague falls to his death in an attempt to
rescue Scottie as he looks on in horror. In the apartment of his
ex-fiancée, Scottie and Midge discuss his career plans in light
of his newly discovered acrophobia, which has prompted him to quit
the police force. Scottie is contacted by college acquaintance Gavin Elster,
who has heard of Scottie’s accident and wishes to hire him to trail
his wife Madeleine, who Elster believes is possessed by the spirit
of her great-grandmother Carlotta Valdes. Scottie later learns from
Elster that Carlotta committed suicide at age twenty-six—Madeleine’s
current age—and he fears that Madeleine, too, has suicidal tendencies.
Scottie is initially skeptical but begins to follow the beautiful
and mysterious Madeleine in her wanderings around San Francisco,
eventually tracking her to the McKittrick Hotel, where he learns
Madeleine spends time under the name Carlotta Valdes. Scottie and
Midge learn the story of Carlotta Valdes and her San Francisco manor
from bookstore owner and local historian Pop Leibel, and they later
discover that the McKittrick hotel is in fact Carlotta’s former
home.
The next day, Scottie continues to trail Madeleine, this
time to a spot under the Golden Gate Bridge, where he watches her
throw herself into the San Francisco Bay. Scottie dives in and rescues
the unconscious Madeleine and drives her to his apartment, where
he undresses her and puts her to bed. When Madeleine awakens, she claims
not to remember anything about her suicide attempt, so Scottie tells
her that she appeared to have slipped. As they talk, they begin
to fall in love. But when Scottie leaves her to answer the phone,
Madeleine slips out the door and flees. The next day, Scottie is
surprised to trail Madeleine back to his own apartment, where she is
leaving a thank you note for him. They decide to spend the day wandering
together, traveling to the giant sequoia forest at Big Basin, where
Madeleine makes evasive allusions to her possession and her strange
dreams about death. She describes a place in her dreams that looks
like Spain, which Scottie later recognizes to be the mission at
San Juan Bautista.
Scottie tells Madeleine that he can explain her strange
obsessions as a repressed memory of time she must have spent at
the mission. He resolves to take her to the spot to bring to rest
the notion that she is possessed. When they arrive, she recognizes
it all, and after professing her love for Scottie, runs agitatedly
toward the bell tower. She heads up the spiral staircase with Scottie
in hot pursuit. Near the top of the tower, Scottie’s acrophobia
strikes, and he is unable to continue the climb. He looks out the
window in time to see Madeleine’s body hurtle down to the rooftop
of an adjoining building. Scottie flees. He is next seen at the
coroner’s inquest, where Gavin Elster is cleared of all responsibility
for his wife’s death, but where Scottie is berated by the coroner
for allowing his phobia to, in effect, cause the death of an innocent
person. Wracked with guilt and grief, Scottie spends the next year
catatonic in a sanatorium, where Midge attempts to bring him back
to reality.
After his release from the sanatorium, Scottie again
wanders the streets of San Francisco, seeing hints of Madeleine
in everyone. He follows one woman, who he believes looks like a
brunette Madeleine, back to her apartment and questions her relentlessly about
her identity. She says her name is Judy Barton, that she hails from
Kansas, and that she works in a department store. Scottie invites
her to dinner. As soon as he leaves to allow her to change her clothes,
Judy begins to pack a suitcase. Hesitating about what to do, she
sits down and composes a letter to Scottie. In it, she divulges
that she had been hired by Gavin Elster to play the role of Madeleine
in a plot to murder his wife. Judy reveals that when she got to
the top of the bell tower, Elster was waiting with the already-dead
body of his wife dressed identically to Judy, which he hurled out
the window for Scottie to witness. She ends her letter by admitting
her love for Scottie. After a brief hesitation, she tears up the
letter.
Scottie and Judy have dinner and it is apparent that
Scottie is interested in Judy only insofar as she resembles the
dead Madeleine. His obsession deepens, and he insists that Judy
dye her hair blonde and wear clothing identical to that worn by
Madeleine. Judy initially resists, but then decides she would rather
be loved by Scottie as someone else than lose his love altogether.
When she returns from the beauty parlor, her transformation is complete.
They kiss passionately. In the next scene, the two are preparing
to go to dinner when Scottie notices that the necklace Judy puts
on is Carlotta’s necklace, which Madeleine wore the day she died.
He realizes Judy’s true identity but does not say anything right
away.
Instead, Scottie tells her he wants to take a drive in
the country and begins driving toward San Juan Bautista. Judy becomes
increasingly hysterical as she realizes that Scottie suspects her
secret. In a rage, Scottie drags Judy up the steps of the tower,
confronting her with her deception. She admits her guilt but claims
to still love Scottie and begs for his forgiveness. They reach the
top and embrace, but are interrupted by the shadowy figure of a
nun. Judy is so startled by the ghostly figure that she screams
and falls from the tower to her death. Scottie is left alone in
the tower, cured of his acrophobia but broken in every other respect.
