Review: Film: Rear Window, by Julie Renee Phelan

Thumps from 1 to 5: Thump of 5.

The film “Rear Window” is a 1954 mystery suspense thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes. The film is based on Cornell Woolrich's short story “It Had to Be Murder.” It stars James Stewart , playing L. B. "Jeff" Jefferies, a photographer who spies on his neighbors while recuperating from a broken leg, Grace Kelly, playing Lisa Fremont, L.B. Jefferies girl-friend, Thelma Ritter, playing Stella, L.B. Jefferies home care nurse, Wendell Corey, playing Tom Doyle, L.B. Jefferies friend, and Raymond Burr, L.B. Jefferies neighbor.

“Rear Window” is Hitchcock’s finest film. It received four Academy Award nominations, Best Director for Alfred Hitchcock, Best Screenplay by John Michael Hayes, Best Color Cinematography by Robert Burks, and Best Sound by Loren L. Ryder.

L.B. Jefferies broke his leg while on a dangerous photography assignment. Jefferies is confined to his wheelchair in his apartment in Greenwich Village, and rear window overlooks a courtyard. From his rear window, Jeff also has a view inside many neighbors’ apartments through their large rear windows. The apartment is an ideal set up for a voyeur with a zoom lens. The apartment complex is a real fish bowl.

Jefferies passes the time during the hot and humid hot summer sun trying to reach an unattainable itch inside his hard full length plaster leg cast. Fortunately, the neighbors keep their windows open to stay cool, and Jeff has access to his telephoto lens on his camera. Jeff has both sound and sight to augment his enthusiastic new-found profession of voyeurism. He watches a lovely dancer, who wears little, a lonely hearts woman, a composer, and some married couples, including a newly married couple, and a salesman with a bedridden wife.

Jefferies watches the salesman make repeated late-night trips with a large suitcase, and his wife is gone or is she missing. The salesman cleans a knife and handsaw in his kitchen sink. The salesman has a large trunk tied with heavy rope removed from his apartment. The neighbor’s dog is found dead with its neck broken. The suspicious late-night trips lugging a suitcase, missing wife, cleaning of knife and handsaw, trunk tied with rope, and the dead dog all point to murder. These observations of Jeff’s are shared with Lisa and Stella, each participant brings their own paranoia and fears creatively into Jeff’s hypothesis of murder.

Of exceptional note is the filming. The entire film is filmed through the rear window of L.B. Jefferies apartment, except when the dog is found dead in the courtyard. Otherwise, the entire intrigue takes place in Jeff’s apartment, or within the mind of one unit escaping only when the dog is found dead to the courtyard. The filming is a brilliant piece of a mastermind, such as that in which only can be produced by Hitchcock. Where does Hitchcock appear? Hitchcock can be found winding the clock in the composer’s apartment.