Hitchcock at his best
- Rear Window review by CB
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.
2 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
When the heat is on.
- Rear Window review by CP Customer
An excellent film which is both funny and exciting, with excellent performances from James Stewart and Grace Kelly.
1 out of 2 members found this review helpful.
Tense Classic Thriller
- Rear Window review by GI
If you've ever doubted Alfred Hitchcock's credentials as a master of the suspense film then you haven't seen Rear Window. Shot completely on one set this is a classic Hollywood thriller with two top quality stars in James Stewart and Grace Kelly. He is L.B. 'Jeff' Jeffries, a renowned magazine photographer (consequently a snoop!), who has broken his leg and over a hot New York summer he's confined to a wheelchair in his apartment. Out of boredom he watches his neighbours going about their everyday business. Then one night, during a thunderstorm, he sees a man who lives opposite him acting suspiciously and after awhile Jeff begins to conclude the man has murdered and dismembered his nagging wife. As Jeff puts his pieces of the 'crime' together he also manages to convince his socialite girlfriend, Lisa (Kelly) of the murder but the police aren't so easily convinced and decide Jeff is fantasising. Hitchcock keeps you asking yourself did a murder happen or are all the clues innocently explained creating some great tension and with a twist surprise ending which I won't spoil in case you've never seen this wonderful film. With its look at the moral issues of voyeurism and privacy the film was ahead of its time and quite raunchy for an early 1950s film. Stewart is really good here, an actor of great range and proving it here in a role that requires mostly close ups and little movement. A must see film, a true masterpiece of the thriller genre.
1 out of 1 members found this review helpful.
Classy classic.
- Rear Window review by JD
The colour is a bit weird. I don't know how they did colour in 1954 but everyone has mesmerisingly blue eyes. Some of it is a bit dated the stunt for example of falling looks very staged. Most is absolutely awesome, the direction (Hitchcock what more can you say), and the plot. The acting is definitely 50's style, sort of twee and theatrical but not bad in a light hearted drama, James Stewart varies. His comedy (trying to scratch inside a plaster of paris) is very average, his ability to convey the sense of frustration of an ambitious man stuck indoors, is spot on.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.
Classic Hitchcock (spoiler).
- Rear Window review by Steve
This is one of Alfred Hitchcock's impediment films; entirely shot within a single room, mostly looking outward from the back of action photographer James Stewart's swanky New York apartment. The set of the Manhattan tenements is one of the most impressive man made structures in cinema.
The invalided photo-journalist grows addicted to voyeurism. His window is an opening into the lives of strangers. The inability to hear what is happening in their rooms means that Hitch is able to demonstrate his brilliant capacity for visual wit and storytelling- adapted from a short story by Cornell Woolrich..
The sustained suspense builds to a climactic frenzy when the lame hero observes his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) entering the apartment of a killer just as he returns home, while a woman below diverts his attention by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. Stewart carries the film well, with fine support particularly from Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr.
Some critics feel that this is a personal to Hitchcock because it about observing. The gaze and the cut to what is seen. Maybe, but Hitchcock is an acute observer of human behaviour rather than a philosopher. This mimics a cinematic process and the role of the audience, but it doesn't say anything profound about either. But it's still one of the great Hitchcock thrillers.
0 out of 0 members found this review helpful.