My Review of Rear Window (1954)

 

Written by John Michael Hayes

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Stella: "Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence."

Now I've seen this one a few times and the other day, I found myself revisiting it. There are a lot of Hitchcock movies that everyone should see at least once in their lifetime. This obviously would be one of them.

You've got James Stewart confined to a wheelchair for the entirety of this film giving one of the best performances. In this film, he's a photojournalist named L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies. His injuries were work related, so he's basically under glorified house arrest and he's bored.

In his life, he's got a beautiful girlfriend named Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly). She's a model and went out of her way to treat Jeff to a nice dinner while also broaching the topic of them moving in together. Jeff wasn't so keen on the idea of such a thing. Lisa isn't a role that seemed exciting but as the movie went along, Lisa got some moments of true perception in relation to women and jewellery. There's a good point to it.

There's also the nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter). She's more of a fun character who's happy to challenge Jeff at different points while maintaining his physical health and recovery. I liked her character and would've been happy to have had more scenes with her.

Then there's Jeff's neighbour, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr). The latter was seen hosting a party with a slew of colourful characters and then he killed his wife (Irene Winston). Or did he? Jeff was convinced of his guilt while others like Lisa and Lt. Thomas "Tom" J. Doyle (Wendell Corey) were less convinced that a murder even happened.

Of course, Jeff would be vindicated in his beliefs but it certainly didn't happen straightaway and Jeff's actions did put both himself and Lisa at risk. It's almost surprising that Jeff didn't end up being killed, though Thorwald certainly tried to. Saying that, Jeff probably could've handled the whole thing a lot better than he did.

- The movie was based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 story It Had To Be Murder.

- Thorwald's party guests included Miss Lonely Hearts (Judith Evelyn), Miss Torso (Georgine Darcy), songwriter (Ross Bagdasarian), Miss Hearing Aid (Jesslyn Fax) to name a few.

- Standout music: Leonard Bernstein's Fancy Free.

- Chronology: Mid 1950s in Greenwich Village, New York.

Rear Window (1954) has undeniably has earned it's place in cinematic history. It's one of Alfred Hitchcock's best films and for good reason and it's one of the best performances from James Stewart. It's a tense film but also very amusing in parts.

Rating: 9 out of 10