Rear Window

Rear Window (1954)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly.

Watching this was like seeing it for the first time ever, okay it had been a decade or two. This is brilliant masterful cinema, one of Hitchcock's best. The entire movie was shot in a massive set at Paramount; they had to knock out the floor of a sound stage and build the set in the basement, in order to have a full four stories to shoot on - incredible, only for Hitch.

James Stewart plays Jeff, a grumpy photographer, laid up with a broken leg in his apartment on a hot summer. Jeff spies into the open windows of adjacent apartments from his rear window using his camera as a telescope. He watches different people but focuses on a strange married couple and assumes, through a series of events, that the husband has killed his wife. Jeff confides in his girlfriend (Grace Kelly) and a friend of his who is a cop. He needs evidence and so uses his girlfriend to help expose the plot, endangering her life when the trap fails but the police save her in the nick of time. The killer comes after Jeff but Jeff blinds him temporarily with flashbulbs from his camera and falls out of the rear window breaking his other leg. The killer is caught and confesses to the police.

The film stays in Jeff's apartment the entire time, it's all confined in the set and it makes it so great. Tense, claustrophobic, hot, anxious, all the elements needed for a great thriller. The lighting and design are immaculate, this is when Hitch was at the top of his game. It deals with paranoia and suspicion, spying, being nosey, security, big brother, all before cctv existed. My favorite film of Hitch's is Strangers on a Train but Rear Window is a must see, dvd owner for sure.