THEME:VERTIGO (58A: 1958 film that is the subject of this puzzle) — shot-specific movie theme—all the movie-related answers are arranged in a kind of square spiral that mimics the staircase in the vertiginous DOLLY ZOOM shot toward the end of VERTIGO (dir. by Alfred HITCHCOCK), when Jimmy STEWART chases Kim NOVAK up the mission bell TOWER:
Word of the Day: DOLLY ZOOM (21A: Dizzying camera technique invented for 58-Across) —
A dolly zoom (also known as a Hitchcock shot, Vertigo shot, Jaws effect, or Zolly shot) is an in-camera effect that appears to undermine normal visual perception.
The effect is achieved by zooming a zoom lens to adjust the angle of view (often referred to as field of view, or FOV) while the camera dollies (moves) toward or away from the subject in such a way as to keep the subject the same size in the frame throughout. The zoom shifts from a wide-angle view into a more tighter-packed angle. In its classic form, the camera angle is pulled away from a subject while the lens zooms in, or vice versa. The dolly zoom's switch in lenses can help audiences identify the visual difference between wide-angle lenses and telephoto lenses. Thus, during the zoom, there is a continuous perspective distortion, the most directly noticeable feature being that the background appears to change size relative to the subject. Hence, the dolly zoom effect can be broken down into three main components: the moving direction of the camera, the dolly speed, and the camera lens' focal length.
The visual appearance for the viewer is that either the background suddenly grows in size and detail and overwhelms the foreground, or the foreground becomes immense and dominates its previous setting, depending on which way the dolly zoom is executed. As the human visual system uses both size and perspective cues to judge the relative sizes of objects, seeing a perspective change without a size change is a highly unsettling effect, often with strong emotional impact. (wikipedia)
• • •
If you've never seen the movie, well, you should, it's great, but also, this must've been, uh, slightly disorienting for you? I don't think I've ever seen a theme this specific before, based entirely around a single, fairly short shot in a movie. In fact, when I'd finished the puzzle, I thought the spiral of words was simply a representation of the whirling dizziness brought on by VERTIGO—a kind of square version of the circular swirl on the movie's poster:
But no, it's definitely a representation of the staircase in the DOLLY ZOOM shot itself (which you can see here, around the 1:20 mark):
I teach courses in crime fiction and noir and I have grown to love this movie over the years. At first, I was really repulsed by STEWART's character when he turns stalker / abuser toward the end of the film, so the movie just wasn't *fun* for me to watch, the way Rear Window was fun and North by Northwest was fun and even Psycho was fun. Abusive treatment of NOVAK was too realistically creepy for me to enjoy. I still think it's creepy, but I've grown to appreciate the film's considerable beauty. Plus, its DNA is in sooooo many later films (including, surprisingly, THE CONVERSATION (1974), which I just taught). But back to the puzzle—it's definitely ambitious and original in design. You might lose a lot of people with that spiral (I think some will take it, as I initially did, to be a generalized swirl and not a specific staircase), but it's all there—the clues *do* refer to that specific scene, the actors, the TOWER. It works, and the grid manages to hold symmetry (axial symmetry this time). It's a very narrow topic and the theme answers are entirely trivia, but if the movie is your jam, then it's hard to be mad at this very creative theme.
The fill ... well, with a theme like this, where the themers run all over hell and gone, filling the grid cleanly is a huge chore, so with that higher level of difficulty in mind, I think this one comes out OK. You get two showy 15s and an APOPLEXY in the bargain, which is more flashy long stuff than you have any right to expect in a theme this dense. At first I thought MONKEYING AROUND (60A: Goofing off) was trying to pass itself off as a themer, coming as it does in a final, climactic-seeming position. But then I realized the symmetry was on a tilt and that answer was just a non-thematic counterpart to the other 15, "I DEMAND A RECOUNT" (11D: Cry after being narrowly defeated). I balked at ONAVISA (46D: Way to travel, for many tourists), as I balk at many longer prepositional phrases that don't seem air tight (e.g. INACAR and ONAPLANE feel bad, whereas OVERTHEHILL and INABIND feel good, complete, standalone strong). FIGMENT felt incomplete as clued. "FIGMENT of your imagination" is the full phrase. You would never say "oh, that's just a FIGMENT ..." I see we're still doing POPO, which I wish would go (go). But mostly the fill holds up, does its job, stays out of the way. It's fine.
I had trouble in various places, most notably with PANCHO, which ???? I had no idea had anything to do with "Francisco" (40A: Nickname for Francisco, often). That "PAN-" section thus ended up being slow for me, as I couldn't readily get PUMA (40D: Deer stalker), and I had zero idea about NORMANDY (as clued) (42D: Operation Overlord locale). So many nicer, non-war ways to think about Normandy, but OK. I always confuse ARGOS and ARGUS and did so again today, but had enough good sense to leave that second vowel blank until I got the cross. Botched *both* vowels in HIRAM (47A: Ulysses S. Grant's given name at birth), though now I can't remember how. It's possible I wrote in ABRAM, confusing Grant's given name with Garfield's middle name (the way I'm always confusing Grant and Garfield, tbh ... damned late 19th-century bearded "G" presidents ... I'm looking at your non-consecutive ass too, Grover Cleveland ... though it looks like Cleveland just had the mustache, not the full beard). Mostly, though, the puzzle was the normal Wednesday level of difficulty, and the theme was pretty easy if you know the movie (and maybe even if you don't).
No happy tune the first or second time around. It was easy enough to correct @Rex ARGoS at 54D, but still no music. It took a while to find Mr. ROsOTO at 2D (yes, I know the rice dish isn't spelled that way but the song was a WOE) because As SENT is one way to be marked.
I love the movie, and filled in all of the themers with no crosses. Can see @RP’s point about creepiness, but then that’s the point of the film, and it’s certainly not hard to understand how STEWART comes by his disorder, for which he pays and pays again mightily. Did not recognize the DOLLYZOOM representation in the grid until reading Rex; glad to see that now.
Looks like VERTIGO will turn 65 in a couple of weeks, on May 9. I suppose this puzzle was deemed too tough for Tuesday, justifying its appearance today. Whatevs…
What a cool idea, and very well executed. There’s another design feature, I think - the cross represents the top of the TOWER, and the diagonal black squares opposite it might be the steps?
It’s been a long time since I have seen VERTIGO, and since I always forget the plot almost immediately after seeing a movie, it would be a lot like watching for the first time. I know there’s something about the NOVAK chararacter’s double identity … and that’s about it.
I’m surprised Rex didn’t mention the political context of I DEMAND A RECOUNT. I guess with Trump it’s not so much that as I DEMAND YOU FIND ME TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VOTES THAT DO NOT EXIST. But then there was that Arizona recount that backfired on him. I imagine his reaction to that was pure APOPLEXY - which was my favorite answer in the puzzle.
One of my pet peeves: lecterns and PODIA are different things. You stand on PODIA and read from lecterns. You often do these at the same time. But if you try to stand on a lectern you are likely to get hurt. End of rant.
A real raised-by-wolves puzzle. - A themed puzzle with two 15s, neither of which is part of the theme. - The very rare diagonal symmetry. - A ‘tribute’ puzzle in an era when the NYT seems to eschew tribute puzzles. - A PPP-based puzzle, which normally would avoid non-thematic PPP as much as possible that instead seems to exult in adding as much as it can.
Clue for 30D is flat-out wrong. That clue is for AHH, not AAH.
Nice little nod to the many of us who were recently complaining about the puzzle skewing younger these days, lol.
If you are going to go with old-school PPP as your theme, my preference would be to avoid gunking up the grid with non-words like CRISPR and ROBOTO right out of the gate in the NW - but hey, it’s the NYT and I know they can’t help themselves, so it’s basically shut up and eat your vegetables (or in this case it’s slog, parse, rinse, repeat).
Okay, you know how last week when I was griping about the POETS CORNER puzzle, I said I couldn’t care less about grid architecture? (Wait, what, you’re not memorizing all of my opinions?!)
I apparently was lying to you all. This was really, really badass. If you’re gonna do a gimmick like this, go all in. Flex, and flex hard. I haven’t seen VERTIGO since my “Film as Art” class in college, but apparently all that knowledge was still in storage somewhere, making this an easy-medium solve for me. The fact that this is a recreation of a single shot and that it works is kind of mind-blowing. The fact that a theme and a grid architecture could be this weirdly specific and create so many constraints on the construction and that still a good bit of the fill could be so interesting and sparkly? I’ll need some help lifting my jaw up off the floor.
Agreed with Rex about FIGMENT and ON A VISA, and there was a non-negligible amount of crosswordese, but I’m feeling very forgiving given the aforementioned badassery. I had to wonder if I DEMAND A RECOUNT was originally clued for Trump. What a solid spanner of an answer. And another plus one for APOPLEXY. CRISPR was also an enjoyable one for me - it was my first thought but then I doubted myself - “what are we, in the vegetable drawer in the fridge, Weezie?!” Then I got to have that nice smug feeling of having been right all along with the crosses.
What a fun Wednesday. Curious to see the commentariat’s reviews come in, and whether we’re all going to range from mixed to positive or if some folks will loathe it. 👀
This seems like an appropriate time to share that Ulysses S. Grant changed his name from HIRAM Ulysses Grant when he got to West Point, because he was worried he'd get made fun of for his initials being H.U.G., and he'd always gone by Ulysses anyway. The middle initial S never officially stood for anything.
Just as that Film as Art class gave Weezie an appreciation of Vertigo, reading Rex has finally given me an appreciation of grid construction. This one is amazing. Solving it, I felt a bit like Jimmy Stewart during that DOLLYZOOM. (By the way, part of what makes Vertigo so icky—icky and brilliant—is the way the camerawork makes you see the action through his eyes, thus feeling all sympathetic for him. And then he turns out to be such a creep. Not a spoiler—if you haven’t seen it, do seek it out. It’s a great movie, but very disturbing—moreso now, maybe, than when it was made.)
I got the puzzle and l just as you predicted, I have not seen this movie! Have seen Psycho and Rear Window, so I’ll add it to my very long list of “movies I never have time to watch but maybe someday”. Thanks for posting the clip, it was very clarifying. I enjoyed it though, Loved I demand a recount.
CRISPR took just about all of the crosses, unfortunately, because it's one of those words you run into that looks weird and memorable and you think, "bet I see that in a crossword someday, I won't forget it". and then you do.
I just saw exactly the same clue for ESPY somewhere, which I thought was a nice misdirect then and still do. Maybe I'm doing too many crosswords.
AHH before AAH, again, OHOH before UHOH, and HOTTEA seems to me a little like ONAVISA, but those are nits indeed. I learned DOLLYZOOM but the other themers were gimmes and I thought a lot of the fill was just great. IDEMANDARECOUNT? OK, done and done and done again, and you still lose. Now go away.
My favorite Wednesday in a while, AMR. A Magnificent Recap of a classic film, and thanks for all the fun.
Really fun puzzle for cinephiles. And before we pile on Scottie TOO heavily for his bad behavior, let’s remember **SPOILER ALERT** he himself was a PTSD-survivor being gaslit by a couple of murderers. Perhaps not an excuse, but certainly an extenuating circumstance.
Easy puzzle for an octogenarian like me, I suppose fairly hard for the millennial crowd.
Never heard of DOLLYZOOM, but VERTIGO was an exciting film, so it must have worked. The NW gave me momentary trouble, because I couldn't believe CRISPR was a real acronym. All in all, a fun Wednesday with a touch of nostalgia.
Thank God for Jeopardy! Great coincidence for me. I started puzzle last night, got nothing. I woke up today, forgot about the puzzle, I turned on Jeopardy, which was taped and half watched. Second question (for me) was: Movie based in San Francisco starring Jimmy Stewart? Vertigo! That reminded me of the crossword and I thought I bet it's Vertigo! I never would have got it otherwise.
As Joe said, CRISPR would be more appropriate for genome editing or engineering, but it is NOT an acronym associated with genetic sequencing (source: I work at a company that makes DNA sequencing products).
My heart always sinks a little bit when I see a gray-squared design-y grid like this because it usually means a grid art puzzle's on its way and they almost always bore me to death. This one was no exception.
And wasn't it Belafonte who died yesterday? Why a HITCHCOCK tribute puzzle? Or is it possibly the anniversary of the release of VERTIGO? I mean it was a good movie and all, but does it really deserve a tribute puzzle?
And what's the grid art here? OK, the DOLLY ZOOM is over the TOWER, which is where it would obviously have to be, but are NOVAK and STEWART climbing up the sides of the tower? Is HITCHCOCK climbing up the side of the tower too?
Or are all three falling from the top of the tower?
Beats me. Nor do I much care, to tell the truth.
What I did care about was the Trump-y, non-VERTIGO-related subtext: Namely: "I DEMAND A RECOUNT" and "FACTS are stubborn things." I do think there's a message there.
I looked up the definition of FIGMENT because the usage here seemed off, but it turns out that in the FIGMENT of your imagination everything but FIGMENT is redundant. A FIGMENT is the product of imagination. As I always say, Live, Learn & Forget. I think I always say that, I can't be sure.
VERTIGO is a wonderful film, arguably HITCHCOCK's finest, although "North by Northwest" will forever be my favorite. Jimmy STEWART was amazing playing neurotic characters, although Scotty's troubles in VERTIGO go well beyond neuroses.
But as a crossword puzzle theme? Meh. I didn't notice the spiral until Rex explained it, (although many others did) so the symmetry just confused me. APOPLEXY, DUSTUPS and the two 15's outshone the theme entries. The cluing was very boring.
Given where the film is set, I did find it humorous to see PANCHO clued as such. That was the best part. My dad was a native of the Bay Area, and he and my mom met in college there. I grew up down in Orange County, but when I was little, for some reason I asked them the best restaurant they ever ate in. They agreed it was Ernie's, prominently featured in the film. They also loved the Blue Fox. Personally, my favorite restaurant memory is when my dad took me to Tadich Grill when I was 12 or 13. I felt like an emperor, snarfing down whatever I ordered that day.
@pabloinnh, I was thinking the same thing about just seeing the "play" misdirect for ESPY - probably in the NYer, since that is the only other one I regularly do.
I wonder if fear of anti-semitism had anything to do with the Hiram/Ulysses swap.
No need to put Trump in the clue for 11D; was there a single person who got the answer and didn't think of him?
A really good intro to CRISPR on the podcast Radiolab. Nice to see that consonant jumble show up.
Nice to see my new friend FRETSAW stop by again so soon!
I'm going to now go off happily thinking about a DOLLYPartonZOOM!
@Southside, does 40 year old Mr. ROBOTO not count as "old-school PPP"? Remember the name, he drops by semi-annually.
I saw the diagonal symmetry, but didn't get the visual reference until Rex pointed it out. Thanks!
YESTERDAY NYer SPOILER ALERT: For those looking for less PPP, avoid the NYer. Yesterday featured RINASAWAYAMA crossing HOWIE Dorough (at the W, no less), RAMIMALEK, ARNAZ (clued as baby on cover of TV Guide in '53), and TOBEY Maguire.
Great puzzle about a great and creepy Hitchcock. Like many here I’ve seen most of his films . This one has the best supporting cast of them all. Barbara Bel Geddes , with her magnificent throaty voice, as ex-fiancée of Stewart’s; Henry Jones as the coroner; and, Ellen Corby as the hotel manager. The inquest brings to mind a very similar one in Rebecca, 1940 Hitchcock.
Tower scene is unforgettable but I didn’t know the name name of the camera technique.
I'm sure this wasn't the easiest puz to fill, so bravo on the relative clean fill Aaron. Wondering how many UH-OHs he ran into.
Never seen the movie. I'm not much of an "old black and white" movie type guy. HITCHCOCK seemed ahead of his time to me. Wondering what movies he would've cranked out in modern times.
Didn't we just have FRETSAW? Or was that a differentSAW?
26 threes, but again, forgivable for the Theme.
"Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike, guess what dayyyy it is?" 😁 Just me MONKEYING AROUND.
Overlord is crossword history related. It was D-Day code word for invasion. The word appeared as an answer to a clue in a British newspaper crossword. I think it was one or two days before June 6. Feared that the operation was compromised.
My journaling app tells me I've now been a daily commenter here for an entire year... sorry about that.
Super fun and super challenging. I've heard the movie title and the director of course, but all the rest took patience. A definite hunt and peck Wednesday.
It's been in puzzles before, but I will never remember CRISPR.
I DEMAND A RECOUNT is such a perplexing modern phrase. We've become accustomed to hearing it unfortunately despite how rarely (if ever?) a recount changes anything.
I've entered APOPLEXY in my favorite word list at number 11 right under FIASCO and above APLOMB. Love MONKEYING AROUND especially on a wonky grid like this. I also love RIALTO and FIGMENT.
A lectern is not a podium. They're separate apparati. ROTH crossing HIRAM is rude.
Tricky: [Camel and sands] = TANS. OOPS then OHNO before UHOH. LCDS before LEDS. Gotta go look up ARGUS.
Uniclues:
1 ...as coffee is to ram. 2 Serenity now. 3 My summertime goal after way too many trips to the dermatologist for surgery.
1 HOT TEA IS TO DOE... 2 ABSENT APOPLEXY 3 TANS AVOIDED
I've never understood the critical rapture over VERTIGO -- which I've never considered one of Hitch's greatest movies even though the critics seem to love it. Here, for those of you too young to know the Hitchcock oeuvre in full, is a list of my particular favorites more or less in order of preference. (FWIW, Hitch has given me more hours of movie pleasure than any other director just as Agatha Christie has given me more hours of pleasure than any other author.)
1. Notorious (The best and most suspenseful on every level.)
2. Strangers on a Train (What can I say. That tennis scene!)
3. Rear Window (Moody, a bit one-note, but fascinating)
4. North by Northwest (Great suspenseful script, if you can just get past the colder-than-ice Eva and stop wishing she were Grace.)
5. The Lady Vanishes (If he re-made it, it would be modernized like the remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" -- but something ineffable would be lost. I love Hitch's "English period", btw.)
6. To Catch a Thief. Not all that suspenseful compared to his best films -- but see it for its breathtaking images. Cary Grant in full color!!!! (Be still my heart!!!!) The French Riviera in full color!!!! Grace Kelly in full color!!!! Hitch's most beautiful movie by a landslide.
7. The original The Man Who Knew Too Much. Much leaner and meaner than the Doris Day remake.
Only then would I send you off to what I consider the highly neurotic and overpraised VERTIGO. And compared to Kim NOVAK who has always given me the creeps no matter what part she plays, Eva Marie Saint is just abut the warmest and most cuddly female lead imaginable.
I learned something new today: "figment of the imagination" is a redundancy in the same way "nape of the neck" is. FIGMENT means something that exists only in one's imagination.
DNF because didn’t know ROBOTO. Instead of ‘aBsent’ as the cross (‘one way to be marked’) had ‘as sent’ (no space obviously). This was in reference to email being marked, well, ‘as sent’.
Thank you, Nancy! Vertigo gets my award for Most Overrated Film. Not that it isn’t an interesting film, but there is an Emperor’s New Clothes quality to its ranking as #1 or #2 in the last two Sight and Sound polls. I’ve taken two dozen film courses at an Ivy League university l, so I’ve watched the film several times, and heard lectures on it and read scholarly articles on it and I’m still underwhelmed. I agree it’s not even one of my favorite Hitchcocks.
While I was a bit surprised to see so many rave reviews here, I really have no actual criticisms. It just wasn’t my personal cup of HOT TEA, perhaps because I have never been a big fan of HITCHCOCK films. I’ve always AVOIDED creepy scary movies and books as being frightened out of my wits has never been my idea of entertainment.
Aside from that though, I must say this puzzle was very well done and the grid art extremely effective in conveying the message of VERTIGO. It throws me slightly off kilter just to look at it, sort of like the ZOOM on my DOLLY needs adjusting.
I like any puzzle that invokes nausea, vomiting, sweating and difficulties in walking. But I wish it could have AVOIDED the VOID. But don’t FRET. SAW VERTIGO with my then girlfriend Alexis. She was worried about how much the tickets would cost, but felt better when I told her that they were only “three bucks APOPLEXY.”
I don’t remember having ever heard of a FRETSAW until the 4/9/23 puzzle. So when it appeared again today, I figured it must be time to invest in this red-hot fad.
Before you go to Iran, I suggest you checkout the RIALTO dollar conversion rate.
Pretty neat to construct a good puzzle out of one movie shot. I’m thinking of trying one based on the Belushi PIMPLE POPPING shot in Animal House. Thanks for a nice Wednesday, Aaron M. Rosenberg.
Aw man, I LOVED this puzzle. As soon as I got to the first themer clue (21A: Dizzying camera technique invented for 58-Across) I was like, "Oh, it's that disorienting camera trick Hitchcock invented for Vertigo!" and shot down to 58A to fill in Vertigo without even looking at the clue. Then I quickly zipped around to all the themers and filled them in, fully appreciating the Vertigo homage of the spiral layout. The only themer I had any difficulty with was, ironically, that first one, since I couldn't remember what that shot was called. After filling in the "OOM" at the end the answer clicked into place for me. None of the fill jumped out as particularly problematic. I can see this being an unintersting or frustrating puzzle for folks who have't seen or don't really remember Vertigo, but all in all I found it to be an excellent tribute to a brilliant film.
Vertigo is well down on my list as well. At the time of its release, a NYT review citing the wildly unlikely plot line, called it a "HitchcockandBull story"
Loved this puzzle because I love the movie I actually started by filling in the theme answers first, which expedited the solve.
Rex, thanks for mentioning the great film,The Conversation, which I’m always surprised many don’t remember. It won the Palme d’Or and was nominated for the best picture Oscar - as was every feature film starring the late great John Cazale, and Meryl Streep’s love until his untimely death.
Fun solve; liked it LOTS. ___ @pablo: got Anna's Mon. New Yorker in 50 min, which puts it in the relatively easy category for me. So much I didn't know; indeed, a tribute to fair crosses. :) ___ Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Very neat, both in concept and execution, showing the TOWER"s squared-off stairs and all the critical contributors to the scene. Thank goodness I knew the movie, as I needed the theme crosses to help me out with other entries.... which I thought were very good: CRISPR, NORMANDY, DUST UPS, MONKEYING AROUND and APOPLEXY crossing an expression of RECOUNT rage. Happy to learn about the DOLLY ZOOM.
@Wanderlust, thank you for pointing out the TOWER'S cross.
I've never seen the movie, but knew the title and had probably seen the poster, and that was all I needed. Didn't know DOLLYZOOM but dollies and zooming are involved with movie shots, so with a few crosses--especially that Z--it popped out.
We seem to be divided today into those who have never heard of CRISPR and those who know enough about it to complain about the clue. I'm in the middle; my son-in-law once worked for a company that used it to design drugs, and now it's all over the science news, but the clue was good enough for me.
I do question the plural LEDS as clued. A LED is a single display option; to get plural options, you have to have another one, e.g. LCD. If you want to pluralize LED you need something like "some monitors."
Another kealoa! Word for a female animal that one doesn't normally hear; is it a sOw or a DOE?
@Nancy: I noticed that FACTS vs. RECOUNT subtext too. Then throw MONKEYING AROUND [with the results] into the mix. As I said in my earlier post, I was never a big Hitchcock fan but I have seen Psycho and The Birds, which was as close to traumatized as I’ve ever been by a film. Even though I watched it decades ago, I still shudder when I think of it and to this day, remember it when I see a flock of blackbirds.
Me too. What a dizzying realization! I had always assumed that FIGMENT meant a "piece" - probably confusing in my childhood imagination with "segment".
@Joseph Michael (and @Whatsername, too)-- My "The Birds" story: a then-boyfriend asked me if I wanted to see "the new Hitchcock movie". It had just opened and I knew nothing about it. I said yes, and for my pains I would be fated to jump out of my skin for the next few years even when a tiny sparrow flew too near.
(I closed my eyes during much of the film, but sometimes I wasn't fast enough on the draw.)
"Did you know? Did you have any idea?" I asked my boyfriend.
"Sure," he said.
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew if I told you, you wouldn't have gone."
(That relationship didn't last all that much longer, btw.)
Starting with "Psycho" (which I've avoided like the plague my whole life), Hitchcock movies inexplicably changed from suspense to explicit gore, horror, and other general unpleasantness. My last Hitchcock was "Frenzy" which -- again having no idea what was coming -- I found an inexcusable exercise in pointless sadism. I stopped going to new Hitchcock films and watched the old favorites instead.
@Whatsername -- You can trust me, I promise. I'm someone who hates to be frightened out of my wits. I totally avoid scary movies. The films I've listed are all nail-bitingly suspenseful and will keep you on the edge of your seat, but they will not make you jump out of your skin. There is one fairly scary and disturbing scene in Strangers on a Train -- but see it anyway. It doesn't take you by surprise and it resolves short of mayhem.
The scariest scene to be found in all the Hitchcock films I liked is in a movie that I meant to put high up on my list, but forgot: "The 39 Steps". I jumped so high I almost hit the ceiling during -- shall I call it "the digital scene"? -- but I would not have missed that movie for the world. It's also from his English period and one of his classics.
Surprised that Rex didn't comment on the staggering amount of 3-letter fill required to make the theme work (26 answers out of 78!). At least PLYSKASETTUB is nowhere near OOXTEPLERNON levels of "glue".
Why is the UHOH clue specifically about haircuts? Without even a "maybe" or "perhaps" at the end. Looked a bit odd to me.
I had no idea what a fretsaw was, even though my father had a furniture factory where I worked on every machine except the circular saw. Vertigo is one of my least favorite Hitchcock films. But The Conversation is undoubtedly Coppola's masterpiece -- better than Apocalypse Now and even the two Godfathers. And what a great name for Hackman's character, Harry Caul.
Kinda loopy. Liked. For one thing, has some real loopy puzgrid symmetry. Nice splatz-mark +sign where Kim NOVAk lands, at the end (spoiler alert!), tho.
@Nancy: yep. M&A fave Hitch-flick: "North by Northwest". No contest. But all his flicks were pretty darn good.
@kitshef: har … "raised-by-wolves". Primo puz review intro.
Nice bonus grid-spanners, with IDEMANDARECOUNT & MONKEYINGAROUND.
staff weeject pick, of a generous 26 candidates: YUK. When in doubt, go for the "U", just for laughs.
Thanx for the loopy fun, Mr.Rosenberg dude. Nice job. Extra loopy fun fact: Hitch filmed an alternate endin for "Vertigo", which is available on some DVDs and such. [Not necessarily a CRISPR one, tho.]
I thought this puzzle was great. I wanted it to represent "Vertigo" as soon as I saw "1958 film" with a 7-letter answer, though I was briefly stumped by ONAV– as an improbable start for 46d. I like the vaguely askew symmetry, and the non-theme-related fill is imaginative. A bang-up job.
@Nancy 8:56, since you asked :-) —In the grid art, the theme answers are replicating the flights of the square-spiral staircase in the dolly zoom shot. If you picture Jimmy Stewart standing more or less where SET is (bottom of the grid), he's looking down at the center (where the black cross is): he's climbed the TOWER segment starting from the right, then the NOVAK segment, then VERTIGO, STEWART, DOLLY ZOOM and HITCHCOCK en route to the top. In the film he looks down twice, and the dolly zoom exaggerates the height of the climb each time. It is very brief, though.
I like "Vertigo" a lot but I also think it's somewhat overpraised. ***spoilers ahead if you haven't seen it *** Mostly I can't get past how ludicrous the murder plot is. It depended on two other people behaving the way the husband needed them to, which was iffy. The Judy Barton character doesn't seem worldly or talented enough to pull off being the enigmatic Madeleine for any length of time. And later, the husband dragged a corpse into the bell tower and up all those stairs by himself? How could he be sure he wouldn't be seen, and how did they get down from the tower and leave the mission without being seen? And what if Jimmy Stewart *did* make it to the top of the tower? He almost does. What would have happened then?
But if that kind of stuff doesn't bother you, the rest of it is cool. Stewart and Novak are great together and the photography and music score are top-notch.
Sir Hillary (9:10). Ernie's (with its flocked wallpaper) and The Blue Fox are two iconic San Francisco restaurants, both closed now. Tadich Grill is still serving up superb grilled Petrale every day. It's the oldest restaurant in California, 1849.
Happy to see that many of us don't think Vertigo is great. From reading the comments, I'm getting the idea that it is so highly regarded because many college film courses tout it. They probably don't consider enjoyability a major factor in evaluating a film.
No doubt in my mind— VERTIGO is the best Hitchcock . A + in casting,acting, screenplay, cinematography, set design, even costumes. Kim Novak shoulda won Best Actress. Someone earlier questioned the praise that has been heaped on it and at same time listed their favorite Hitchcock as “Notorious” . With Leoplodine Konstantin as Madame Anna Sebastian, the dinner scene with the Nazis, the reception with the champagne running out, Madame Sebastian lighting that cigarette, it could have been the best, but was ruined by that terrible drunk party scene and the subsequent wild drive and by the failed attempt at some romance between Grant and Bergman. The only of his films that comes close to Vertigo is Rear Window.
Just came to reiterate what has already been said a couple of times: the acronym CRISPR is associated with a technology that is used to edit genomes. While you may may then sequence the DNA you've edited to assess the quality of your edits, you don't use anything CRISPR related to do that!
Wow a Hitchcock VERTIGO tribute! I had always known the technique as the "Hitchcock Zoom" rather than DOLLY ZOOM, and I'd forgotten it was used in that famous tower climb. VERTIGO is one of my favorites, although Rear Window is #1 for me.
I actually made a Hitchcock tribute puzzle about 7 years ago. It is not up to professional standards (that southeast corner is pretty rocky) but if you want to try it here is the .puz file.
@Joe Dipinto, I agree about the ludicrousness of many of Hitchcock's plots. I enjoy the films despite it, but if it wasn't there they would be so so epic! In fact he famously used the term "MacGuffin" for the central plot idea, and he said it didn't matter what it actually was. I think he was very wrong about that, and wish he had gone that extra mile.
talk about misdirect. i had a totally different thought of the grid. i got HITCHCOCK pretty early off the H in UTAH and with bucketsfull = TONS i then had both 5-letter theme words starting with NO and there seems to be an arrow pointing NW from the center cross. so i thought the theme was going to be a different movie, which happens to be my favorite.
Thank you! Came here to say that. I got this one on crosses after mentally running through Sanger, dideoxy, next-gen, high-throughput… none of which are acronyms and most of which don’t fit.
But at least they relate to DNA sequencing. CRISPR is gene editing technology. The difference between reading a gene’s sequence and changing it is vast.
@bocamp-Congrats on the NYer. My experience was more like @burtonkd's in finding a lot of the PPP and crossing PPP to be totally unknown. I don't mind using the "check" feature to guess a letter and see if I'm right with puzzles like this, something I never do with the NYT.
Madness. Absolute madness. Yes, Vertigo is enjoying its moment. It's frequently found at or near the top of the greatest movies ever made. It gained some cult status in some film school circles a while back and that flavor-of-the month standing oozed out to trap midwits. That it is Hitchcock's best work is ludicrous. Bankrupt insanity. It's not even one of the top pictures from 1958. South Pacific, Touch of Evil, Elevator to the Gallows, The Magician, The Inn of the Seventh Happiness, Separate Tables, and Gigi are all better films. And thats' off the top of my head. Vertigo isn't even the best Stewart/Novak film of 1958. Bell, Book and Candle earns that crown. As Mr. DiPinto notes, the plot to vertigo is risible; frankly I find the witches in BB&C more likely. As for someone else's claim that the art direction in verigo was good-- swing and another miss. Bell, Book and Candle had first-class art direction and the Academy award nomination to prove it. Vertigos costume design? Are you crazy? Again, Bell, Bok and Candle got the nomination. And they did it almost exclusively for Novak's character in Vertigo, she looks like something from Madame Tussaud's. As for Novak deserving an Oscar, um, no. She wasn't even nominated. Want a great performance in a leading role? Watch Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables, or the criminally underrated Rosiland Russell in Auntie Mame.
As for Vertigo's dolly zoom, Spielberg did it world's better in Jaws.
The clue for CRISPR did say acronym.( whether it is a word or not is a matter of opinion-I think it is). Acronyms are used in most crosswords Doesn't the Post use acronyms? I don't see anything wrong with the answer(whether it is too hard for a Wednesday is a different issue).
@okanaganer 1:58 - 80% interesting, 20% ????? Could not get 50A, 53A, 54D, or 50D. I have no idea what 56D means, which may be why 54D was beyond me. It turns out I did guess correctly on 54D, but it was based on 'what other letter could fit', rather than knowledge.
@JC66 Thanks! I knew it had to be something with Proper Names/Nouns, etc, but I was having trouble coming up with three "P"s. I was thinking much narrower than your explanation, which makes a lot more sense.
@kitshef... yeah as I said it's not professional level and that southeast has several major problems.
I'd forgotten that I eventually gave up on it which is why the crossing 'earths' is in there! And 56D is a grad degree abbrev and it there probably should be some indication of that in the clue, say "Deg. for Meryl Streep". Good thing I didn't quit my day job.
@Mathgent asked me earlier via email if I remembered that "Dial M For Murder" is by Hitchcock and did I like it as much as he did?
OMG -- Mea maxima culpa for leaving it out. Yes, I knew it was Hitchcock, so why do I always forget that fact? It's surely one of his greatest movies -- though a bit atypical of his usual style -- and it's the one I would most recommend as an "entry level" Hitchcock for @Whatsername. In some ways it's more the closed room mystery than suspense film and nothing about it will scare you. And it's absolutely brilliant -- guaranteed to have you coming back for much more Hitchcock in the future.
@ Nancy, I guess our Hitchcock lists will just have to be different. And, if you were that scared by "The Birds," you should definitely never ever see "Psycho." (I guess you already know that.) I'm glad you got rid of that boyfriend.
Burtonkd asked if Grant might have changed his named because Hiram might have sounded too Jewish. Highly unlikely. Hiram was a quite a common name in Nineteenth Century America among Protestants. As a naming dictionary says: "Well used in the 19th Century" but rare after 1930. For a military man U.S. Grant just sounds appropriate in addition to the H.U.G. problem mentioned earlier..
Liked the puzzle. Vertigo never was was a favorite Hitchcock film when I was young, but I have noticed the praise heaped upon it since. Don't dislikeit like many here do but like some of the movies Nancy mentioned better. Also agree with Nancy that Frenzy is not a good movie. On the other hand, I loved the Birds. Hitchcock did treat many of his female leads horrendously.I think he got worse as he got old. Especially to Tippi Hedron of the Birds. That back story does give bother me when I think of that movie. On the other hand, Nancy is right that he made a lot of great movies in England and as far as I read without the sick obsessions he developed later.
I disagree with you and Rec about ONAVISA that is definitely something anyone who travels says. I can't count the number of times I've talked about traveling to X country on a visa
No one mentioned "Foreign Correspondent". That's a favorite early Hitchcock of mine, starring Joel McCrea, who was in the puzzle recently. It was nominated for Best Picture of 1940 but lost to "Rebecca", also directed by Hitch. Another good early one is "Shadow Of A Doubt" with Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten.
Vertigo has personal resonance for several reasons: I love Jimmy Stewart; Kim Novak was haunting and ravishing in the film; I feel deeply sorry for poor Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes); and I am forever in love with/haunted by San Francisco (I hate to agree with the film’s villain, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), but he’s right that the old SF is fast disappearing, but I’m still seduced by the city every time I go back; I live in Chicago now but my wife teaches in a small town in Northern California and so I’m back there a lot, and I was a Berkeley student in the ‘70s). Vertigo is not my favorite Hitchcock movie, but it’s in the top 10 for me. There are so many SF films I love due to their different ways of paying homage to the magic and pathos of the city: Dirty Harry, Woman on the Run, The Maltese Falcon, the 1936 film simply called San Francisco, Petulia, Bullitt, but Vertigo may be the most haunting of them all. For those interested in the interplay of dream and disillusionment in San Francisco, I highly recommend the 2019 indie film The Last Black Man In San Francisco. It poignantly depicts the predicament of native-born marginalized San Franciscans of limited financial means being squeezed out by remorseless capitalism. One scene in particular underscores the conflict and clash of cultures in the city. The main protagonist, a young Black man struggling to hang on in the city he’s called home all his life, overhears two privileged young white women, recent arrivals, complaining about the city while riding on public transportation. They agree that they “hate” the city. Losing patience, he interjects that they have no right to say such a thing: “You can’t hate it unless you love it.” That about sums it up for me.
@okanaganer - Incredibly, a word from your puzzle that I swear I had never encountered in my life before today (53A) appears in yeterday's Tim Croce freestyle 806, which I solved just now. Alas, I could not remember it
I’ve never seen Vertigo. I am not a film student. But I have seen one or two episodes of the Actor’s Studio or even a Paley Fest panel enough to know what a DOLLY ZOOM is, as well as a movie poster or two that made this instantly recognizable as VERTIGO. This puzzle was a piece of cake. As well-known as the idea that Rosebud is a sled. (Also never seen Citizen Kane.) Mock me as you should, but folks who found this “overly specific” should maybe branch out a little.
Ply is NOT thickness. As a textile maker at a spinning wheel, I know that ply is the number of strands twisted together. Or, layers of tissue paper. 5 ply yarn can be fine as thread, and two ply yarn fat enough to be rope.
Hand up for NxNW being Hitch's best. I'm a big fan of Alred, and in fact his best is my #1 favorite movie of all time. VERTIGO, I thought, was really weird, almost Stephen King-like. I did not view STEWART's character's treatment of co-DOD Kim NOVAK (with TERI Hatcher) as abuse, but as a singular obsession. Anyway, good flick--and good puzzle.
The arrangement of themers is striking. This is really spot-on a depiction of that fateful staircase. Kudos to Aaron for that feat.
Even the fill is interesting. Gonna give this one an eagle.
Especially since I got a Wordle eagle too--almost a holeout.
Had NOT heard of DOLLYZOOM, Ms. Parton comes to mind; sounds like a ride at Pigeon Forge. Noticed: ATO ISTO TOS, CHATUP DUSTUPS, RATON ONAVISA. Circled: TERI Hatcher, Kim NOVAK. Disappointing wordle bogey.
A long time ago, I was solving this puzzle and got stuck at an unguessable (to me) crossing: N. C. WYETH crossing NATICK at the "N"—I knew WYETH but forgot his initials, and NATICK ... is a suburb of Boston that I had no hope of knowing. It was clued as someplace the Boston Marathon runs through (???). Anyway, NATICK— the more obscure name in that crossing—became shorthand for an unguessable cross, esp. where the cross involves two proper nouns, neither of which is exceedingly well known. NATICK took hold as crossword slang, and the term can now be both noun ("I had a NATICK in the SW corner...") or verb ("I got NATICKED by 50A / 34D!")
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97 comments:
No happy tune the first or second time around. It was easy enough to correct @Rex ARGoS at 54D, but still no music. It took a while to find Mr. ROsOTO at 2D (yes, I know the rice dish isn't spelled that way but the song was a WOE) because As SENT is one way to be marked.
I love the movie, and filled in all of the themers with no crosses. Can see @RP’s point about creepiness, but then that’s the point of the film, and it’s certainly not hard to understand how STEWART comes by his disorder, for which he pays and pays again mightily. Did not recognize the DOLLYZOOM representation in the grid until reading Rex; glad to see that now.
Looks like VERTIGO will turn 65 in a couple of weeks, on May 9. I suppose this puzzle was deemed too tough for Tuesday, justifying its appearance today. Whatevs…
What a cool idea, and very well executed. There’s another design feature, I think - the cross represents the top of the TOWER, and the diagonal black squares opposite it might be the steps?
It’s been a long time since I have seen VERTIGO, and since I always forget the plot almost immediately after seeing a movie, it would be a lot like watching for the first time. I know there’s something about the NOVAK chararacter’s double identity … and that’s about it.
I’m surprised Rex didn’t mention the political context of I DEMAND A RECOUNT. I guess with Trump it’s not so much that as I DEMAND YOU FIND ME TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VOTES THAT DO NOT EXIST. But then there was that Arizona recount that backfired on him. I imagine his reaction to that was pure APOPLEXY - which was my favorite answer in the puzzle.
One of my pet peeves: lecterns and PODIA are different things. You stand on PODIA and read from lecterns. You often do these at the same time. But if you try to stand on a lectern you are likely to get hurt. End of rant.
A real raised-by-wolves puzzle.
- A themed puzzle with two 15s, neither of which is part of the theme.
- The very rare diagonal symmetry.
- A ‘tribute’ puzzle in an era when the NYT seems to eschew tribute puzzles.
- A PPP-based puzzle, which normally would avoid non-thematic PPP as much as possible that instead seems to exult in adding as much as it can.
Clue for 30D is flat-out wrong. That clue is for AHH, not AAH.
Nice little nod to the many of us who were recently complaining about the puzzle skewing younger these days, lol.
If you are going to go with old-school PPP as your theme, my preference would be to avoid gunking up the grid with non-words like CRISPR and ROBOTO right out of the gate in the NW - but hey, it’s the NYT and I know they can’t help themselves, so it’s basically shut up and eat your vegetables (or in this case it’s slog, parse, rinse, repeat).
Okay, you know how last week when I was griping about the POETS CORNER puzzle, I said I couldn’t care less about grid architecture? (Wait, what, you’re not memorizing all of my opinions?!)
I apparently was lying to you all. This was really, really badass. If you’re gonna do a gimmick like this, go all in. Flex, and flex hard. I haven’t seen VERTIGO since my “Film as Art” class in college, but apparently all that knowledge was still in storage somewhere, making this an easy-medium solve for me. The fact that this is a recreation of a single shot and that it works is kind of mind-blowing. The fact that a theme and a grid architecture could be this weirdly specific and create so many constraints on the construction and that still a good bit of the fill could be so interesting and sparkly? I’ll need some help lifting my jaw up off the floor.
Agreed with Rex about FIGMENT and ON A VISA, and there was a non-negligible amount of crosswordese, but I’m feeling very forgiving given the aforementioned badassery. I had to wonder if I DEMAND A RECOUNT was originally clued for Trump. What a solid spanner of an answer. And another plus one for APOPLEXY. CRISPR was also an enjoyable one for me - it was my first thought but then I doubted myself - “what are we, in the vegetable drawer in the fridge, Weezie?!” Then I got to have that nice smug feeling of having been right all along with the crosses.
What a fun Wednesday. Curious to see the commentariat’s reviews come in, and whether we’re all going to range from mixed to positive or if some folks will loathe it. 👀
This seems like an appropriate time to share that Ulysses S. Grant changed his name from HIRAM Ulysses Grant when he got to West Point, because he was worried he'd get made fun of for his initials being H.U.G., and he'd always gone by Ulysses anyway. The middle initial S never officially stood for anything.
Just as that Film as Art class gave Weezie an appreciation of Vertigo, reading Rex has finally given me an appreciation of grid construction. This one is amazing. Solving it, I felt a bit like Jimmy Stewart during that DOLLYZOOM. (By the way, part of what makes Vertigo so icky—icky and brilliant—is the way the camerawork makes you see the action through his eyes, thus feeling all sympathetic for him. And then he turns out to be such a creep. Not a spoiler—if you haven’t seen it, do seek it out. It’s a great movie, but very disturbing—moreso now, maybe, than when it was made.)
CRISPR is an acronym in genetic engineering. It is not directly related to DNA sequencing.
I got the puzzle and l just as you predicted, I have not seen this movie! Have seen Psycho and Rear Window, so I’ll add it to my very long list of “movies I never have time to watch but maybe someday”. Thanks for posting the clip, it was very clarifying. I enjoyed it though, Loved I demand a recount.
CRISPR took just about all of the crosses, unfortunately, because it's one of those words you run into that looks weird and memorable and you think, "bet I see that in a crossword someday, I won't forget it". and then you do.
I just saw exactly the same clue for ESPY somewhere, which I thought was a nice misdirect then and still do. Maybe I'm doing too many crosswords.
AHH before AAH, again, OHOH before UHOH, and HOTTEA seems to me a little like ONAVISA, but those are nits indeed. I learned DOLLYZOOM but the other themers were gimmes and I thought a lot of the fill was just great. IDEMANDARECOUNT? OK, done and done and done again, and you still lose. Now go away.
My favorite Wednesday in a while, AMR. A Magnificent Recap of a classic film, and thanks for all the fun.
The most fun I’ve had with a Wednesday puzzle in a long time. Bonus points for APOPLEXY!
Really fun puzzle for cinephiles. And before we pile on Scottie TOO heavily for his bad behavior, let’s remember **SPOILER ALERT** he himself was a PTSD-survivor being gaslit by a couple of murderers. Perhaps not an excuse, but certainly an extenuating circumstance.
Easy puzzle for an octogenarian like me, I suppose fairly hard for the millennial crowd.
Never heard of DOLLYZOOM, but VERTIGO was an exciting film, so it must have worked. The NW gave me momentary trouble, because I couldn't believe CRISPR was a real acronym. All in all, a fun Wednesday with a touch of nostalgia.
Thank God for Jeopardy! Great coincidence for me. I started puzzle last night, got nothing. I woke up today, forgot about the puzzle, I turned on Jeopardy, which was taped and half watched. Second question (for me) was: Movie based in San Francisco starring Jimmy Stewart? Vertigo! That reminded me of the crossword and I thought I bet it's Vertigo!
I never would have got it otherwise.
Amy: Hitchcock fan; love this puzzle. Good seeing DEB Haaland. Like her hanging with Bill NYE at NYU. And TIL (today I learned) DOLLYVISION.
As Joe said, CRISPR would be more appropriate for genome editing or engineering, but it is NOT an acronym associated with genetic sequencing (source: I work at a company that makes DNA sequencing products).
My heart always sinks a little bit when I see a gray-squared design-y grid like this because it usually means a grid art puzzle's on its way and they almost always bore me to death. This one was no exception.
And wasn't it Belafonte who died yesterday? Why a HITCHCOCK tribute puzzle? Or is it possibly the anniversary of the release of VERTIGO? I mean it was a good movie and all, but does it really deserve a tribute puzzle?
And what's the grid art here? OK, the DOLLY ZOOM is over the TOWER, which is where it would obviously have to be, but are NOVAK and STEWART climbing up the sides of the tower? Is HITCHCOCK climbing up the side of the tower too?
Or are all three falling from the top of the tower?
Beats me. Nor do I much care, to tell the truth.
What I did care about was the Trump-y, non-VERTIGO-related subtext:
Namely: "I DEMAND A RECOUNT" and "FACTS are stubborn things." I do think there's a message there.
I looked up the definition of FIGMENT because the usage here seemed off, but it turns out that in the FIGMENT of your imagination everything but FIGMENT is redundant. A FIGMENT is the product of imagination. As I always say, Live, Learn & Forget. I think I always say that, I can't be sure.
VERTIGO is a wonderful film, arguably HITCHCOCK's finest, although "North by Northwest" will forever be my favorite. Jimmy STEWART was amazing playing neurotic characters, although Scotty's troubles in VERTIGO go well beyond neuroses.
But as a crossword puzzle theme? Meh. I didn't notice the spiral until Rex explained it, (although many others did) so the symmetry just confused me. APOPLEXY, DUSTUPS and the two 15's outshone the theme entries. The cluing was very boring.
Given where the film is set, I did find it humorous to see PANCHO clued as such. That was the best part. My dad was a native of the Bay Area, and he and my mom met in college there. I grew up down in Orange County, but when I was little, for some reason I asked them the best restaurant they ever ate in. They agreed it was Ernie's, prominently featured in the film. They also loved the Blue Fox. Personally, my favorite restaurant memory is when my dad took me to Tadich Grill when I was 12 or 13. I felt like an emperor, snarfing down whatever I ordered that day.
@pabloinnh, I was thinking the same thing about just seeing the "play" misdirect for ESPY - probably in the NYer, since that is the only other one I regularly do.
I wonder if fear of anti-semitism had anything to do with the Hiram/Ulysses swap.
No need to put Trump in the clue for 11D; was there a single person who got the answer and didn't think of him?
A really good intro to CRISPR on the podcast Radiolab. Nice to see that consonant jumble show up.
Nice to see my new friend FRETSAW stop by again so soon!
I'm going to now go off happily thinking about a DOLLYPartonZOOM!
@Southside, does 40 year old Mr. ROBOTO not count as "old-school PPP"? Remember the name, he drops by semi-annually.
I saw the diagonal symmetry, but didn't get the visual reference until Rex pointed it out. Thanks!
YESTERDAY NYer SPOILER ALERT:
For those looking for less PPP, avoid the NYer. Yesterday featured RINASAWAYAMA crossing HOWIE Dorough (at the W, no less), RAMIMALEK, ARNAZ (clued as baby on cover of TV Guide in '53), and TOBEY Maguire.
Great puzzle about a great and creepy Hitchcock. Like many here I’ve seen most of his films . This one has the best supporting cast of them all. Barbara Bel Geddes , with her magnificent throaty voice, as ex-fiancée of Stewart’s; Henry Jones as the coroner; and, Ellen Corby as the hotel manager. The inquest brings to mind a very similar one in Rebecca, 1940 Hitchcock.
Tower scene is unforgettable but I didn’t know the name name of the camera technique.
Hey All !
Am I getting dizzy?
I'm sure this wasn't the easiest puz to fill, so bravo on the relative clean fill Aaron. Wondering how many UH-OHs he ran into.
Never seen the movie. I'm not much of an "old black and white" movie type guy. HITCHCOCK seemed ahead of his time to me. Wondering what movies he would've cranked out in modern times.
Didn't we just have FRETSAW? Or was that a differentSAW?
26 threes, but again, forgivable for the Theme.
"Mike Mike Mike Mike Mike, guess what dayyyy it is?"
😁
Just me MONKEYING AROUND.
Two F's
RooMonster
DarrinV
@Nancy - good catch with the Facts crossing the Recount.
Ha! And, huh! Good to know, ty for sharing that tidbit with us.
Overlord is crossword history related. It was D-Day code word for invasion. The word appeared as an answer to a clue in a British
newspaper crossword. I think it was one or two days before June 6. Feared that the operation was compromised.
No problem with this theme - just thought it was more of a Thursday-level of difficulty.
My journaling app tells me I've now been a daily commenter here for an entire year... sorry about that.
Super fun and super challenging. I've heard the movie title and the director of course, but all the rest took patience. A definite hunt and peck Wednesday.
It's been in puzzles before, but I will never remember CRISPR.
I DEMAND A RECOUNT is such a perplexing modern phrase. We've become accustomed to hearing it unfortunately despite how rarely (if ever?) a recount changes anything.
I've entered APOPLEXY in my favorite word list at number 11 right under FIASCO and above APLOMB. Love MONKEYING AROUND especially on a wonky grid like this. I also love RIALTO and FIGMENT.
A lectern is not a podium. They're separate apparati. ROTH crossing HIRAM is rude.
Tricky: [Camel and sands] = TANS. OOPS then OHNO before UHOH. LCDS before LEDS. Gotta go look up ARGUS.
Uniclues:
1 ...as coffee is to ram.
2 Serenity now.
3 My summertime goal after way too many trips to the dermatologist for surgery.
1 HOT TEA IS TO DOE...
2 ABSENT APOPLEXY
3 TANS AVOIDED
I've never understood the critical rapture over VERTIGO -- which I've never considered one of Hitch's greatest movies even though the critics seem to love it. Here, for those of you too young to know the Hitchcock oeuvre in full, is a list of my particular favorites more or less in order of preference. (FWIW, Hitch has given me more hours of movie pleasure than any other director just as Agatha Christie has given me more hours of pleasure than any other author.)
1. Notorious (The best and most suspenseful on every level.)
2. Strangers on a Train (What can I say. That tennis scene!)
3. Rear Window (Moody, a bit one-note, but fascinating)
4. North by Northwest (Great suspenseful script, if you can just get past the colder-than-ice Eva and stop wishing she were Grace.)
5. The Lady Vanishes (If he re-made it, it would be modernized like the remake of "The Man Who Knew Too Much" -- but something ineffable would be lost. I love Hitch's "English period", btw.)
6. To Catch a Thief. Not all that suspenseful compared to his best films -- but see it for its breathtaking images. Cary Grant in full color!!!! (Be still my heart!!!!) The French Riviera in full color!!!! Grace Kelly in full color!!!! Hitch's most beautiful movie by a landslide.
7. The original The Man Who Knew Too Much. Much leaner and meaner than the Doris Day remake.
Only then would I send you off to what I consider the highly neurotic and overpraised VERTIGO. And compared to Kim NOVAK who has always given me the creeps no matter what part she plays, Eva Marie Saint is just abut the warmest and most cuddly female lead imaginable.
I learned something new today: "figment of the imagination" is a redundancy in the same way "nape of the neck" is. FIGMENT means something that exists only in one's imagination.
DNF because didn’t know ROBOTO. Instead of ‘aBsent’ as the cross (‘one way to be marked’) had ‘as sent’ (no space obviously). This was in reference to email being marked, well, ‘as sent’.
Oddly the mission San Juan Batista where Vertigo was filmed has no tower. It as added in postproduction
Thank you, Nancy! Vertigo gets my award for Most Overrated Film. Not that it isn’t an interesting film, but there is an Emperor’s New Clothes quality to its ranking as #1 or #2 in the last two Sight and Sound polls. I’ve taken two dozen film courses at an Ivy League university l, so I’ve watched the film several times, and heard lectures on it and read scholarly articles on it and I’m still underwhelmed. I agree it’s not even one of my favorite Hitchcocks.
Well with a reasoned and detailed argument like that …
While I was a bit surprised to see so many rave reviews here, I really have no actual criticisms. It just wasn’t my personal cup of HOT TEA, perhaps because I have never been a big fan of HITCHCOCK films. I’ve always AVOIDED creepy scary movies and books as being frightened out of my wits has never been my idea of entertainment.
Aside from that though, I must say this puzzle was very well done and the grid art extremely effective in conveying the message of VERTIGO. It throws me slightly off kilter just to look at it, sort of like the ZOOM on my DOLLY needs adjusting.
I’m with Rex on POPO. Make it go away please.
I like any puzzle that invokes nausea, vomiting, sweating and difficulties in walking. But I wish it could have AVOIDED the VOID. But don’t FRET. SAW VERTIGO with my then girlfriend Alexis. She was worried about how much the tickets would cost, but felt better when I told her that they were only “three bucks APOPLEXY.”
I don’t remember having ever heard of a FRETSAW until the 4/9/23 puzzle. So when it appeared again today, I figured it must be time to invest in this red-hot fad.
Before you go to Iran, I suggest you checkout the RIALTO dollar conversion rate.
Pretty neat to construct a good puzzle out of one movie shot. I’m thinking of trying one based on the Belushi PIMPLE POPPING shot in Animal House. Thanks for a nice Wednesday, Aaron M. Rosenberg.
Love Hitchcock. Love the theme. Love the grid design.
Do not love CRISPR crossing ROBOTO.
@Nancy, I agree with your Hitchcock favorites, but my list would also include “Frenzy” and probably “The Birds” (just because).
For great insights into Hitchcock’s approach to storytelling, Truffaut’s interview of him is a goldmine.
Aw man, I LOVED this puzzle. As soon as I got to the first themer clue (21A: Dizzying camera technique invented for 58-Across) I was like, "Oh, it's that disorienting camera trick Hitchcock invented for Vertigo!" and shot down to 58A to fill in Vertigo without even looking at the clue. Then I quickly zipped around to all the themers and filled them in, fully appreciating the Vertigo homage of the spiral layout. The only themer I had any difficulty with was, ironically, that first one, since I couldn't remember what that shot was called. After filling in the "OOM" at the end the answer clicked into place for me. None of the fill jumped out as particularly problematic. I can see this being an unintersting or frustrating puzzle for folks who have't seen or don't really remember Vertigo, but all in all I found it to be an excellent tribute to a brilliant film.
Vertigo is well down on my list as well. At the time of its release, a NYT review citing the wildly unlikely plot line, called it a "HitchcockandBull story"
Loved this puzzle because I love the movie I actually started by filling in the theme answers first, which expedited the solve.
Rex, thanks for mentioning the great film,The Conversation, which I’m always surprised many don’t remember. It won the Palme d’Or and was nominated for the best picture Oscar - as was every feature film starring the late great John Cazale, and Meryl Streep’s love until his untimely death.
Medium. No real problems with this one. Clever grid visual tribute to a great movie, liked it and Jeff gave it POW.
Thx, Aaron; STalWART production! :)
Med (avg time, but felt a bit tougher, tho).
Got VERTIGO queued for viewing this PM.
Fun solve; liked it LOTS.
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@pablo: got Anna's Mon. New Yorker in 50 min, which puts it in the relatively easy category for me. So much I didn't know; indeed, a tribute to fair crosses. :)
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Peace 🕊 🇺🇦 ~ Compassion ~ Tolerance ~ Kindness to all 🙏
Very neat, both in concept and execution, showing the TOWER"s squared-off stairs and all the critical contributors to the scene. Thank goodness I knew the movie, as I needed the theme crosses to help me out with other entries.... which I thought were very good: CRISPR, NORMANDY, DUST UPS, MONKEYING AROUND and APOPLEXY crossing an expression of RECOUNT rage. Happy to learn about the DOLLY ZOOM.
@Wanderlust, thank you for pointing out the TOWER'S cross.
@Coniuratus, thank you for the Grant lore.
I've never seen the movie, but knew the title and had probably seen the poster, and that was all I needed. Didn't know DOLLYZOOM but dollies and zooming are involved with movie shots, so with a few crosses--especially that Z--it popped out.
We seem to be divided today into those who have never heard of CRISPR and those who know enough about it to complain about the clue. I'm in the middle; my son-in-law once worked for a company that used it to design drugs, and now it's all over the science news, but the clue was good enough for me.
I do question the plural LEDS as clued. A LED is a single display option; to get plural options, you have to have another one, e.g. LCD. If you want to pluralize LED you need something like "some monitors."
Another kealoa! Word for a female animal that one doesn't normally hear; is it a sOw or a DOE?
@Nancy: I noticed that FACTS vs. RECOUNT subtext too. Then throw MONKEYING AROUND [with the results] into the mix. As I said in my earlier post, I was never a big Hitchcock fan but I have seen Psycho and The Birds, which was as close to traumatized as I’ve ever been by a film. Even though I watched it decades ago, I still shudder when I think of it and to this day, remember it when I see a flock of blackbirds.
Me too. What a dizzying realization! I had always assumed that FIGMENT meant a "piece" - probably confusing in my childhood imagination with "segment".
@Joseph Michael (and @Whatsername, too)-- My "The Birds" story: a then-boyfriend asked me if I wanted to see "the new Hitchcock movie". It had just opened and I knew nothing about it. I said yes, and for my pains I would be fated to jump out of my skin for the next few years even when a tiny sparrow flew too near.
(I closed my eyes during much of the film, but sometimes I wasn't fast enough on the draw.)
"Did you know? Did you have any idea?" I asked my boyfriend.
"Sure," he said.
"Then why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I knew if I told you, you wouldn't have gone."
(That relationship didn't last all that much longer, btw.)
Starting with "Psycho" (which I've avoided like the plague my whole life), Hitchcock movies inexplicably changed from suspense to explicit gore, horror, and other general unpleasantness. My last Hitchcock was "Frenzy" which -- again having no idea what was coming -- I found an inexcusable exercise in pointless sadism. I stopped going to new Hitchcock films and watched the old favorites instead.
@Whatsername -- You can trust me, I promise. I'm someone who hates to be frightened out of my wits. I totally avoid scary movies. The films I've listed are all nail-bitingly suspenseful and will keep you on the edge of your seat, but they will not make you jump out of your skin. There is one fairly scary and disturbing scene in Strangers on a Train -- but see it anyway. It doesn't take you by surprise and it resolves short of mayhem.
The scariest scene to be found in all the Hitchcock films I liked is in a movie that I meant to put high up on my list, but forgot: "The 39 Steps". I jumped so high I almost hit the ceiling during -- shall I call it "the digital scene"? -- but I would not have missed that movie for the world. It's also from his English period and one of his classics.
Enjoyed this puzzle. I luckily got Vertigo early on and the rest fell into place without too much fuss.
I wrote my last comment before I saw yours, @Whatsername.
What a slog. There is nothing fun about an entire puzzle themed around a movie released 30+ years before you were even born.
Surprised that Rex didn't comment on the staggering amount of 3-letter fill required to make the theme work (26 answers out of 78!). At least PLYSKASETTUB is nowhere near OOXTEPLERNON levels of "glue".
Why is the UHOH clue specifically about haircuts? Without even a "maybe" or "perhaps" at the end. Looked a bit odd to me.
I had no idea what a fretsaw was, even though my father had a furniture factory where I worked on every machine except the circular saw. Vertigo is one of my least favorite Hitchcock films. But The Conversation is undoubtedly Coppola's masterpiece -- better than Apocalypse Now and even the two Godfathers. And what a great name for Hackman's character, Harry Caul.
Kinda loopy. Liked.
For one thing, has some real loopy puzgrid symmetry. Nice splatz-mark +sign where Kim NOVAk lands, at the end (spoiler alert!), tho.
@Nancy: yep. M&A fave Hitch-flick: "North by Northwest". No contest. But all his flicks were pretty darn good.
@kitshef: har … "raised-by-wolves". Primo puz review intro.
Nice bonus grid-spanners, with IDEMANDARECOUNT & MONKEYINGAROUND.
staff weeject pick, of a generous 26 candidates: YUK. When in doubt, go for the "U", just for laughs.
Thanx for the loopy fun, Mr.Rosenberg dude. Nice job. Extra loopy fun fact: Hitch filmed an alternate endin for "Vertigo", which is available on some DVDs and such. [Not necessarily a CRISPR one, tho.]
Masked & Anonymo6Us
**gruntz**
I thought this puzzle was great. I wanted it to represent "Vertigo" as soon as I saw "1958 film" with a 7-letter answer, though I was briefly stumped by ONAV– as an improbable start for 46d. I like the vaguely askew symmetry, and the non-theme-related fill is imaginative. A bang-up job.
@Nancy 8:56, since you asked :-) —In the grid art, the theme answers are replicating the flights of the square-spiral staircase in the dolly zoom shot. If you picture Jimmy Stewart standing more or less where SET is (bottom of the grid), he's looking down at the center (where the black cross is): he's climbed the TOWER segment starting from the right, then the NOVAK segment, then VERTIGO, STEWART, DOLLY ZOOM and HITCHCOCK en route to the top. In the film he looks down twice, and the dolly zoom exaggerates the height of the climb each time. It is very brief, though.
I like "Vertigo" a lot but I also think it's somewhat overpraised. ***spoilers ahead if you haven't seen it *** Mostly I can't get past how ludicrous the murder plot is. It depended on two other people behaving the way the husband needed them to, which was iffy. The Judy Barton character doesn't seem worldly or talented enough to pull off being the enigmatic Madeleine for any length of time. And later, the husband dragged a corpse into the bell tower and up all those stairs by himself? How could he be sure he wouldn't be seen, and how did they get down from the tower and leave the mission without being seen? And what if Jimmy Stewart *did* make it to the top of the tower? He almost does. What would have happened then?
But if that kind of stuff doesn't bother you, the rest of it is cool. Stewart and Novak are great together and the photography and music score are top-notch.
@Roo, btw – "Vertigo" is in color.
Sir Hillary (9:10). Ernie's (with its flocked wallpaper) and The Blue Fox are two iconic San Francisco restaurants, both closed now. Tadich Grill is still serving up superb grilled Petrale every day. It's the oldest restaurant in California, 1849.
Happy to see that many of us don't think Vertigo is great. From reading the comments, I'm getting the idea that it is so highly regarded because many college film courses tout it. They probably don't consider enjoyability a major factor in evaluating a film.
I liked the puzzle.
No doubt in my mind— VERTIGO is the best Hitchcock . A + in casting,acting, screenplay, cinematography, set design, even costumes. Kim Novak shoulda won Best Actress. Someone earlier questioned the praise that has been heaped on it and at same time listed their favorite Hitchcock as “Notorious” . With Leoplodine Konstantin as Madame Anna Sebastian, the dinner scene with the Nazis, the reception with the champagne running out, Madame Sebastian lighting that cigarette, it could have been the best, but was ruined by that terrible drunk party scene and the subsequent wild drive and by the failed attempt at some romance between Grant and Bergman.
The only of his films that comes close to Vertigo is Rear Window.
Just came to reiterate what has already been said a couple of times: the acronym CRISPR is associated with a technology that is used to edit genomes. While you may may then sequence the DNA you've edited to assess the quality of your edits, you don't use anything CRISPR related to do that!
Wow a Hitchcock VERTIGO tribute! I had always known the technique as the "Hitchcock Zoom" rather than DOLLY ZOOM, and I'd forgotten it was used in that famous tower climb. VERTIGO is one of my favorites, although Rear Window is #1 for me.
I actually made a Hitchcock tribute puzzle about 7 years ago. It is not up to professional standards (that southeast corner is pretty rocky) but if you want to try it here is the .puz file.
@Joe Dipinto, I agree about the ludicrousness of many of Hitchcock's plots. I enjoy the films despite it, but if it wasn't there they would be so so epic! In fact he famously used the term "MacGuffin" for the central plot idea, and he said it didn't matter what it actually was. I think he was very wrong about that, and wish he had gone that extra mile.
talk about misdirect. i had a totally different thought of the grid. i got HITCHCOCK pretty early off the H in UTAH and with bucketsfull = TONS i then had both 5-letter theme words starting with NO and there seems to be an arrow pointing NW from the center cross. so i thought the theme was going to be a different movie, which happens to be my favorite.
Thank you! Came here to say that. I got this one on crosses after mentally running through Sanger, dideoxy, next-gen, high-throughput… none of which are acronyms and most of which don’t fit.
But at least they relate to DNA sequencing. CRISPR is gene editing technology. The difference between reading a gene’s sequence and changing it is vast.
There are two different ways to interpret that clue at 1A for CRISPR.
If you read “Acronym in [the field of] genetic sequencing” it makes perfect sense, since CRISPR is in fact an acronym for a family of DNA sequences.
If you read “Acronym in [doing] genetic sequencing" then it doesn't. But I was fortunate in that the latter interpretation didn't occur to me.
@okanaganer 1:58 - Thank you! Fun to do, and I learned a couple of new words.
Insane clue for crispr!! Tomorrow’s clue: tool for reading a book. Answer: pen
@bocamp-Congrats on the NYer. My experience was more like @burtonkd's in finding a lot of the PPP and crossing PPP to be totally unknown. I don't mind using the "check" feature to guess a letter and see if I'm right with puzzles like this, something I never do with the NYT.
@Nancy (12:20) Glad to know that boyfriend flew the coop. He sounded like a real birdbrain. LOL
Vertigo is in color
Madness. Absolute madness. Yes, Vertigo is enjoying its moment. It's frequently found at or near the top of the greatest movies ever made. It gained some cult status in some film school circles a while back and that flavor-of-the month standing oozed out to trap midwits.
That it is Hitchcock's best work is ludicrous. Bankrupt insanity. It's not even one of the top pictures from 1958. South Pacific, Touch of Evil, Elevator to the Gallows, The Magician, The Inn of the Seventh Happiness, Separate Tables, and Gigi are all better films. And thats' off the top of my head.
Vertigo isn't even the best Stewart/Novak film of 1958. Bell, Book and Candle earns that crown. As Mr. DiPinto notes, the plot to vertigo is risible; frankly I find the witches in BB&C more likely. As for someone else's claim that the art direction in verigo was good-- swing and another miss. Bell, Book and Candle had first-class art direction and the Academy award nomination to prove it. Vertigos costume design? Are you crazy? Again, Bell, Bok and Candle got the nomination. And they did it almost exclusively for Novak's character in Vertigo, she looks like something from Madame Tussaud's.
As for Novak deserving an Oscar, um, no. She wasn't even nominated. Want a great performance in a leading role? Watch Wendy Hiller in Separate Tables, or the criminally underrated Rosiland Russell in Auntie Mame.
As for Vertigo's dolly zoom, Spielberg did it world's better in Jaws.
A lot of comments referring to PPP. Can someone explain what that acronym stands for?
The clue for CRISPR did say acronym.( whether it is a word or not is a matter of opinion-I think it is). Acronyms are used in most crosswords Doesn't the Post use acronyms? I don't see anything wrong with the answer(whether it is too hard for a Wednesday is a different issue).
@Anon 4:26
Per @Z:
PPP
Pop culture, Product names, and other Proper nouns. 25-30% is pretty NYTX typical. More than 33% almost always causes some subset of solvers trouble.
And U.S. was a lot better for a military man!
@okanaganer 1:58 - 80% interesting, 20% ????? Could not get 50A, 53A, 54D, or 50D. I have no idea what 56D means, which may be why 54D was beyond me. It turns out I did guess correctly on 54D, but it was based on 'what other letter could fit', rather than knowledge.
Crossing 'earth' with 'earth' was pretty ballsy.
@JC66 Thanks! I knew it had to be something with Proper Names/Nouns, etc, but I was having trouble coming up with three "P"s. I was thinking much narrower than your explanation, which makes a lot more sense.
@oakanaganer continued - possible rewrite of the SE?
40A ALPS
46A STERN
50A HATTIE
53A COALESCE
59A KEIRA
62A IREST
Not perfect I know...
@kitshef... yeah as I said it's not professional level and that southeast has several major problems.
I'd forgotten that I eventually gave up on it which is why the crossing 'earths' is in there! And 56D is a grad degree abbrev and it there probably should be some indication of that in the clue, say "Deg. for Meryl Streep". Good thing I didn't quit my day job.
@Joe D (1:02) -- Oh. (LOL)
But thanks anyway.
@Mathgent asked me earlier via email if I remembered that "Dial M For Murder" is by Hitchcock and did I like it as much as he did?
OMG -- Mea maxima culpa for leaving it out. Yes, I knew it was Hitchcock, so why do I always forget that fact? It's surely one of his greatest movies -- though a bit atypical of his usual style -- and it's the one I would most recommend as an "entry level" Hitchcock for @Whatsername. In some ways it's more the closed room mystery than suspense film and nothing about it will scare you. And it's absolutely brilliant -- guaranteed to have you coming back for much more Hitchcock in the future.
@ Nancy, I guess our Hitchcock lists will just have to be different. And, if you were that scared by "The Birds," you should definitely never ever see "Psycho." (I guess you already know that.) I'm glad you got rid of that boyfriend.
Burtonkd asked if Grant might have changed his named because Hiram might have sounded too Jewish.
Highly unlikely. Hiram was a quite a common name in Nineteenth Century America among Protestants. As a naming dictionary says: "Well used in the 19th Century" but rare after 1930.
For a military man U.S. Grant just sounds appropriate in addition to the H.U.G. problem mentioned earlier..
Liked the puzzle. Vertigo never was was a favorite Hitchcock film when I was young, but I have noticed the praise heaped upon it since. Don't dislikeit like many here do but like some of the movies Nancy mentioned better.
Also agree with Nancy that Frenzy is not a good movie. On the other hand, I loved the Birds.
Hitchcock did treat many of his female leads horrendously.I think he got worse as he got old. Especially to Tippi Hedron of the Birds. That back story does give bother me when I think of that movie.
On the other hand, Nancy is right that he made a lot of great movies in England and as far as I read without the sick obsessions he developed later.
I disagree with you and Rec about ONAVISA that is definitely something anyone who travels says. I can't count the number of times I've talked about traveling to X country on a visa
So it turns out that John Adams, second President of the United States, did not in fact refer to farts as "stubborn things"...
No one mentioned "Foreign Correspondent". That's a favorite early Hitchcock of mine, starring Joel McCrea, who was in the puzzle recently. It was nominated for Best Picture of 1940 but lost to "Rebecca", also directed by Hitch. Another good early one is "Shadow Of A Doubt" with Teresa Wright and Joseph Cotten.
Vertigo has personal resonance for several reasons: I love Jimmy Stewart; Kim Novak was haunting and ravishing in the film; I feel deeply sorry for poor Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes); and I am forever in love with/haunted by San Francisco (I hate to agree with the film’s villain, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), but he’s right that the old SF is fast disappearing, but I’m still seduced by the city every time I go back; I live in Chicago now but my wife teaches in a small town in Northern California and so I’m back there a lot, and I was a Berkeley student in the ‘70s). Vertigo is not my favorite Hitchcock movie, but it’s in the top 10 for me. There are so many SF films I love due to their different ways of paying homage to the magic and pathos of the city: Dirty Harry, Woman on the Run, The Maltese Falcon, the 1936 film simply called San Francisco, Petulia, Bullitt, but Vertigo may be the most haunting of them all. For those interested in the interplay of dream and disillusionment in San Francisco, I highly recommend the 2019 indie film The Last Black Man In San Francisco. It poignantly depicts the predicament of native-born marginalized San Franciscans of limited financial means being squeezed out by remorseless capitalism. One scene in particular underscores the conflict and clash of cultures in the city. The main protagonist, a young Black man struggling to hang on in the city he’s called home all his life, overhears two privileged young white women, recent arrivals, complaining about the city while riding on public transportation. They agree that they “hate” the city. Losing patience, he interjects that they have no right to say such a thing: “You can’t hate it unless you love it.” That about sums it up for me.
JoeD,
Correct on both counts. ( Joel McRea waaaaaaay better than Olivier)
But everyone seems to have forgotten his wonderful comedy, Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
@okanaganer - Incredibly, a word from your puzzle that I swear I had never encountered in my life before today (53A) appears in yeterday's Tim Croce freestyle 806, which I solved just now. Alas, I could not remember it
@kitshef: 18 across... what are the odds! I feel much better now.
I’ve never seen Vertigo. I am not a film student. But I have seen one or two episodes of the Actor’s Studio or even a Paley Fest panel enough to know what a DOLLY ZOOM is, as well as a movie poster or two that made this instantly recognizable as VERTIGO. This puzzle was a piece of cake. As well-known as the idea that Rosebud is a sled. (Also never seen Citizen Kane.) Mock me as you should, but folks who found this “overly specific” should maybe branch out a little.
Ply is NOT thickness. As a textile maker at a spinning wheel, I know that ply is the number of strands twisted together. Or, layers of tissue paper. 5 ply yarn can be fine as thread, and two ply yarn fat enough to be rope.
Every now and then a really good puzzle rises to the top of Will Shortz’s huge pile of entries and makes it to print.
I learn something new every day. Did not know that CRISPR had no E. And who knew about the DOLLY ZOOM?
Saw VERTIGO - at least part of it - the other week. A classic. And I even knew those names.
UH OH - here comes June!!!
Diana, Lady-in-Waiting for Crosswords
Hand up for NxNW being Hitch's best. I'm a big fan of Alred, and in fact his best is my #1 favorite movie of all time. VERTIGO, I thought, was really weird, almost Stephen King-like. I did not view STEWART's character's treatment of co-DOD Kim NOVAK (with TERI Hatcher) as abuse, but as a singular obsession. Anyway, good flick--and good puzzle.
The arrangement of themers is striking. This is really spot-on a depiction of that fateful staircase. Kudos to Aaron for that feat.
Even the fill is interesting. Gonna give this one an eagle.
Especially since I got a Wordle eagle too--almost a holeout.
HOT TUB CHAT
FACT IS, DOLLY IS now ABSENT,
OH, IT'SSAD if she's NOT found,
she had NOT AVOIDED A HOT gent
TO GO MONKEYINGAROUND.
--- TERI NOVAK, PHD
Had NOT heard of DOLLYZOOM, Ms. Parton comes to mind; sounds like a ride at Pigeon Forge. Noticed: ATO ISTO TOS, CHATUP DUSTUPS, RATON ONAVISA. Circled:
TERI Hatcher, Kim NOVAK.
Disappointing wordle bogey.
Monday level puzzle infested with nasty pissers.
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