It's all filmed on one set with the hero's bed - he's laid up with a broken leg - front and centre. He's a photographer and apartment bound so the action comes from the invalids various visitors. There's a murder, of course, but it is by no means a routine murder story.
It's 20+ years since I last watched it but it hasn't aged a bit. Sure, the hero's camera I an ancient manual thing, and the all-important flash bulbs are ancient too, but so what?
It's been fully restored. If you haven't seen it, it will keep you on the edge of your seat. The late, great Grace Kelly is a definitive bonus for the men and her AMAZING dress collection is a bonus for the women.
Rear Window is one of Hitchcock's impediment films, shot from within a single room looking outward, mostly of the view of tenements at the back of action photographer James Stewart's swanky New York apartment.
The set on which the invalided Stewart grows addicted to voyeurism by spying on his neighbours is one of the great manufactured structures in cinema. His window provides an opening into the lives of strangers. The inability to hear what is happening in these rooms means that Hitch is able to demonstrate his brilliant capacity for visual wit and storytelling.
Rear Window is a work of sustained suspense which builds to a memorable frenzy at the conclusion when the lame hero watches his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) enter into the facing apartment of a killer just as he returns home, while a woman below incidentally looks like taking an overdose of sleeping tablets.
Some critics feel that this is a personal film to Hitch because it about observing, about seeing and the edit of what is seen. But I'm not convinced that this stands up. Hitchcock is an acute observer of human behaviour, but he is not a philosopher. This thriller might mimic a process of the art of cinema and the role of the audience, but it doesn't have anything profound to say about either voyeurism or film making. Still, it's an exciting and original idea (from Cornell Woolrich's story).
An excellent film which is both funny and exciting, with excellent performances from James Stewart and Grace Kelly.