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     Rear Window

1954  NR  SUSPENSE  1h 52min

CAST— James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian

MUSIC— Franz Waxman  DIRECTOR— Alfred Hitchcock  BASED ON— It Had to be Murder (story), by Cornell Woolrich

     Finally there’s a film for the voyeuristic perv in all of us. Rear Window gives us a glimpse into the life of a photographer, wheelchair-bound, who does nothing all day but people watch. Across his back courtyard there lay other apartment buildings and the denizens therein. On a scorching summer day windows are open all around the courtyard, including the windows of a husband and wife who seem to be at the end of their matrimonial ball ‘n’ chain. Later our photographer friend begins to suspect something when the husband starts to haul away suitcases in the middle of the night, ship out huge trunks, and clean wickedly sharp blades until they’re nice and shiny. The photographer spills the story to his day-nurse and to his girlfriend, who start to join him in his campaign to discover the truth. The story is fun at the start but quickly becomes monotonous as the photographer does the same window-shopping day after day. It’s not as if it’s his fault, though. He has a broken leg. What’s your excuse? Deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.

OUR RATING— ** ½

REMADE AS— Rear Window (1998)