Rear Window

Released: September 1, 1954

Studio: Paramount

Genre: mystery/thriller

Box Office (numbers in millions):

Domestic: 36.76 Worldwide: ?

Adjusted for Inflation:

Domestic: 471.82 Worldwide: ?

Directing: Alfred Hitchcock

Screenwriting: John Michael Hayes

Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr

Review:

This “suspenseful, nail-biting thriller” ^FS is “Hitchcock’s voyeuristic masterpiece.” ^FS “Of all Hitchcock’s films, this is the one which most reveals the man.” ^T95 “Tense script, excellent direction, occasional Hitchcockian gallows humor.” ^VD “Written by mystery writer Cornell Woolrich, the original screenplay had no love story or neighbors for…James Stewart’s character to spy on. Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes changed that.” ^MSN

L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries (Stewart) is a wheelchair-bound photojournalist, confined to his New York City apartment to recover from a broken leg. To amuse himself, he spies on his neighbors through his rear window with binoculars and a telephoto camera. Jeff “experiences all of life’s extremes – a honeymooning couple, dancer Miss Torso, spinsterish Miss Lonelyhearts, and the bickering, intriguing Thorwalds.” ^FS When he becomes convinced Mr. Thorwald (Burr) killed his wife, Jeff “decides to try to catch the fiend himself.” ^VD Lisa, his fashion model girlfriend, (“Grace Kelly at her most Vogue-coverish”) ^T95 “helps with amateur detective work.” ^A07 “There is suspense enough, of course, but the important thing is the way that it is filmed: the camera never strays from inside Stewart’s apartment, and every shot is closely aligned with his point of view.” ^T95

“Quite aside from the violation of intimacy, which is shocking enough,” ^T95 Hitchcock offers disturbing insight into “what it is to watch the ‘silent film’ of other people’s lives, whether across a courtyard or up on a screen.” ^T95 “That the pathetic view of the human community Hitchcock presents from Stewart’s window does not squelch his or our desire to snoop says everything.” ^ML