Rear Window

Green's Review:

L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is a cooped up photographer because of a broken leg. Stuck in his apartment with a huge cast from his waist to the tip of his toes, Jeffries gets into the habit of eavesdropping on his neighbors through the rear window of his apartment at first using just his eyes but then employing his high powered binoculars and a camera with a zoom telephoto lens. He becomes so suspicious of a neighbor's actions (Raymond Burr), whom circumstantial evidence suggests murdered his wife and dismembered her body. As his suspicions grow, Jeffries recruits the help of his ultra hot girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and his visiting nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter). They call in a reluctant detective friend (Wendell Corey) for assistance who doesn't see anything unusual in the neighbor's actions until... it's almost too late.

This is a character study on how to be nosy without getting caught. The script is adequate - nothing that will knock your socks off. In the hands of a lesser director and cast this film would be a boring disaster. Jimmy Stewart is such an effortless actor and he makes every one around him better. This is the only film in Grace Kelly's short Hollywood career that I've seen, and I must make an effort to change this.

There are some places where the film drags and at just under two hours is a tad bit too long. Hitchcock's knack for suspense is well earned in this movie, and is very selective about what we see and hear. Up until the end we're not quite sure if the neighbor is guilty or not. Director Alfred Hitchcock's trademark cameo comes during one of the peeks into the neighboring songwriter's apartment. He can he seen winding a clock.

The only things that annoyed me about this movie have nothing to do with the movie itself. Because I know you want to know and because I want to rant, here they are in no particular order: A) I could not find this movie in either library I use so had to watch my dad's copy (on VHS!!!) B) My dad's the kind of guy who buys a movie or gets one as a gift and never watches it. I had to remove the cellophane shrink wrap from the cassette!!! There was a coupon on the front of the wrapper that expired in 2001, so he's had this movie for six years and never watched it!!! and C) the format of the movie was Full-Screen. I hate it when they chop stuff off to fit it within the TV screen. Watching movies in Widescreen is sooo much better (unless of couse the movie came out before the advent of Widescreen, in which case there's nothing to miss).

**** out of *****

Scribe's Review:

I liked it, too.

***** out of *****