A Hitch in time

If you scour the end credits of The Artist, you might just find tucked away at the end of the roll call a blink-and-you'll-miss acknowledgement of Bernard Herrmann's evocative "Love Theme" from Hitchcock's celebrated 1955 psychodrama, Vertigo.

Herrmann's unique stylings in fact get considerable use towards the climax of the acclaimed new French-made, black-and-white silent feature whose official composer Ludovic Bource has already picked up at least four awards for his jaunty score.

With more to come, doubtless, as the awards season picks up pace.

Amid all the excitement about The Artist, there is now at least one, considerable, dissenting voice. None other than 78-year-old Kim Novak, the American beauty who co-starred (as below) with James Stewart in Hitch's classic nearly 57 years ago.

In a full page ad in the trade paper Variety she says she feels as if "my body - or at least my body of work - has been violated by the movie" before going on to claim that The Artist "could and should have been able to stand on its own."

By featuring Herrmann's music, it's as if the makers of The Artist were, she adds, "guilty of using emotions it engenders as if it were their own ... I believe this to be cheating, at the very least."

Director Michel Hazanavicius has responded by saying that his film was inspired by Hitchcock among other directors, that the music had been used in other films and that he was "pleased it was used in mine."