Voyeurism 101

I think Hitchcock said it all when he was asked if he were to make one more film, what would it be like? He stated, "It would have a murder...with suspense, lots of lovely costumes, beautiful actors...and a joke or two." This is the formula for all his films, and I thank God he came up with it. I would rather watch an Alfred Hitchcock movie than almost any other.

By the time Alfred Hitchcock made Rear Window, he already had made 45 motion pictures! He had a soft place in his heart for blondes. To him, a blonde woman stood for purity, goodness and respectability. If there is a villainess in his films, you can bet they will be brunette, and redheads stood for sexuality, loose morality and lowness of character.

He had had many favorite blondes in the past, but this was his second film using the elegant, cool, and sophisticated Grace Kelly. The first was "Dial M for Murder". He adored her! He really loved dressing her in this film and her gowns are simply gorgeous! They made a fashion statement at the time, and many designs showed the influence of the clothes in this film. Grace Kelly made one more Hitchcock film, "To Catch A Thief" (1955) before retiring from show business to marry Prince Rainier of Monaco, to become a princess. Poor Hitch was devastated!

James Stewart was one of his favorite leading men. He made "Rope", "Rear Window", "The Man Who Knew Too Much" and "Vertigo" for Hitchcock.

In this film he plays L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries, a professional photographer who is "doing time" in a wheelchair because he broke his leg while getting an "action shot" at a car race while on assignment. His girlfriend is Lisa Freemont (Grace Kelly) who is a lovely model/socialite. He has a feisty nurse named Stella (Thelma Ritter) who is game to help him and Lisa any way she can. She is tough and fearless, but simply adorable.

The story plays out that while Jeff is laid up, to help cure his boredom, he begins spying on his neighbors across the courtyard with his telephoto lens off from his camera. This becomes enjoyable as he watches their lives unfold day by day, while he makes up little plots about them to amuse himself. He switches to binoculars, eventually (better tools of the trade, heh heh heh). It stops being fun when he believes he witnesses a murder in one of the apartments. He notifies the police, but they don't find anything and the man in the apartment, Mr. Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) gives a plausible excuse for the absence of his wife. Jeff and Lisa know better and they begin to investigate on their own. Since Jeff is not ambulatory, Lisa and Stella have to do all the leg work for him. The suspense during the scene where Lisa breaks into Thorwald's apartment is excruciating! And if that wasn't bad enough, when Jeff is discovered by Thorwald and he comes after him, Jeff has nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and is stuck in his wheelchair! Yikes! This is a killer of a suspense film!

The vignettes of each apartment in the building across from Jeffries is one of Hitchcock's masterpieces of choreography and cinematography. Life is lived, loved, grieved and killed as separate little worlds inside each window. This is fascinating to watch. It's easy to see why Jeff gets hooked watching it happen.

"Three Coins in the Fountain" won the Academy Award in 1955 over "Rear Window"! It's shocking when you watch the two movies and see what a piece of fluff "Three Coins.." was. It was cute and fun, but not half the piece of expertise as "Rear Window". Rumor had it that it won because it was filmed in CinemaScope and therefore was more beautiful to watch. Sigh...how shallow!

I love this movie...both because it's a Hitchcock film, but also because I'm such a fan of James Stewart. This is another classic film to be added to anyones list of favorites and one I highly recommend.