REAR WINDOW 🤩

Welcome to ESTA’S ECLECTIC CLASSIC CORNER. These are movies  that have stood the test of time throughout past decades and made a difference in my life. Films that I could watch over and over and still love them as much as the first viewing. They are like “comfort food” for me. Each week I will be reviewing a classic that I have loved and can’t wait to share my thoughts with you. Please note, there will be some spoilers in these reviews. I will have to share some of my favorite scenes and dialogue to back up my personal reflections. I am who l am because of theatre and movies. 

I have a confession to declare. I am a watcher or an onlooker. Give me a large picture window and I can sit all day observing anything and everything. I love creating scenarios about the people who pass by, whether it is true or not. My imagination can go wild with my neighbor’s backstories. I never would want to be caught “spying,” so I sit in the shadows. My eyes peeled to the movements, conversations, and activities around my lookout point. I learned this from my mother. She was always “in the know” concerning the families from our Bronx apartment and later in our Phoenix neighborhood. We sometimes even used binoculars when necessary. My mother and I would chat about the world around our boundaries. It was fun. It was innocent. Nothing terrible ever happened. Our “surveillances” taught me to always be “on alert” and be aware. I remember the first time I was introduced to Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW. I smiled at my mom and felt quite “at home” with the storyline. She smiled back and said, “you never know…” To this day, take me on a walk in any neighborhood, and I am focused on what goes on behind the windows we pass. 

REAR WINDOW debuted in 1954. The entire movie takes place from the viewpoint of L.B. (Jeff) Jeffries’ (James Stewart) apartment, picture windows. Jeff is a professional photojournalist who is recuperating from a broken leg. He has been stuck in a wheelchair with a full cast for seven weeks. Only one more week until the cast is finally removed, and he can once again scratch his toes and knees without using a wooden spoon. He is bored to tears, so he begins to observe the entire apartment building across the street. 

Each window is like a tiny computer screen with endless details. Snippets of life in full view from Jeff’s vantage point. There is Miss Lonely heart, the ballet dancer, a music composer who plays his latest creation on the piano in his studio, a newlywed couple who can’t keep their hands off each other, a woman who lets her dog outside by way of a basket and a pulley system, a couple who sleeps on the small balcony because of the heat, and an older man who cares for his sick wife. We learn all of this in the film’s intense, jazzy, creative opening minutes. Alfred Hitchcock is brilliant. 

One evening Jeff sees many disturbing events and suspicious props. First, there was an argument, a man going out three times in the pouring rain, a butcher’s knife, a small saw, a woman’s purse filled with pieces of her jewelry, a large trunk tied up with rope, and in the end, the sickly wife disappears. Has someone been murdered right in full view? Hitchcock creates a masterpiece of suspense. We are hooked and want answers.

The cast of REAR WINDOW also includes Jeff’s sarcastic nurse, Thelma Ritter, his Detective friend, Wendell Corey, and the show-stopping beauty of Lisa (Grace Kelly.)  Lisa portrays Jeff’s loving girlfriend, who wants to marry him. He believes she is “too perfect” for any permanent relationship. Oh, indeed, Grace Kelly is sheer perfection. Hitchcock introduces his audience to her with a full close-up camera angle. He even includes her profile. There is not a flaw to be found. He has her dressed in gorgeous, high-fashion outfits that any woman would give a year’s salary to be able to wear, and not just because it is a “Wednesday and the beginning of Jeff’s last week in containment.” Stunning, breath-taking clothes most women dream of pulling off so easily and naturally. Together Lisa and Jeff eventually work as a team to solve the murder mystery. They are simply adorable despite the tremendous age difference. The two blue-eyed consummate actors are spell-binding and magical. They could move mountains with their lusty looks. Pretty hot for the time period, to be sure. 

Alfred Hitchcock is a genius at setting up viewers with all the innuendoes and foreshadowing. Camera angles change. The light and shadow effect becomes darker and more sinister. We must wait through our fears as we hear the pounding footsteps climbing to Jeff’s door. The whiteness of the flashbulbs. Will our hearts ever stop pounding from paralyzing fright. Hitchcock knows how to weave a story to its conclusion. 

REAR WINDOW is sinister, sophisticated, and quite “passionate” for the fifties. It was one of Hitchcock’s best films. Elegant, witty, and with a touch of chaos and mayhem. His characters are complicated and contain layers of raw, authentic, emotional peaks and ordinary moments. His story is a slow burn and ends with a hair-raising fall.

REAR WINDOW is a classic of the highest caliber where the theme of “love thy neighbor” might sometimes not be wise. 

REAR WINDOW is available to stream on TMC.