Rear Window (1954)

Rear Window (1954)

6/10

Starring

James Stewart

Grace Kelly

Wendell Corey

Thelma Ritter

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Always close your windows and drains. There could be a peeping tom about.

Rear Window coins the phrase “an idle hand is the devil’s workshop” as our character "Jeff" Jeffries, played by James Stewart, spends most of his days peeping into the houses of his neighbors due to a broken leg that has him confined to a wheelchair.

Rear Window was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and is based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder.

The movie stars James Stewart and the beautiful Princess Grace Kelly. It was nominated for four Academy Awards and has remained in the top 50 of AFI's 100 Years…100 Movies list and its 10th-anniversary edition.

This movie is my third-best James Stewart movie so far (I hope to see more) after It's A Wonderful Life (1946) and Mr Smith Goes To Washington (1939).

The movie is considered one of Hitchcock's finest. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 100%, so it's definitely one to watch.

The plot is about professional photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, who breaks his leg while getting an action shot at an auto race.

Now he's stuck in a wheelchair with a cast on his leg and can’t leave his New York apartment. To pass the time, he peeps out his rear window, observing his neighbors, memorising their patterns and trying not to miss a thing happening in their lives.

Things start getting thrilling when he begins to suspect that a man across the courtyard may have murdered his wife.

The acting in this movie is top class, but I felt the movie was a bit predictable, and also there was a time the movie's momentum dropped, and it took its time to get back to speed.

There are movies whose themes can be said to be based on Rear Window, like Michael Davis's Eight Days a Week (1999), Robert Zemeckis's What Lies Beneath (2000), and Disturbia (2007), which kinda reminds you of Rear Window — except the protagonist (Shia LaBeouf) is under house arrest instead of in a wheelchair, and his neighbor is a serial killer instead of having committed just one murder.

Many TV shows have also used the Rear Window idea — The Simpsons, White Collar, and more. But the 1998 TV movie remake of the 1954 classic is my best. I actually saw the TV movie first before seeing the original. It starred Christopher Reeve, who himself was paralyzed as the result of a 1995 horse-riding accident, so he fitted the role perfectly.

Well, enough has been said about Rear Window. It is a classic Alfred Hitchcock thriller, and I can say, if you’re watching all of Hitchcock’s classics, then you must see this one.