Rear Window 1954

Alfred Hitchcock once said: "If you do not experience a delicious terror when you watch Rear Window, then pinch yourself ... You may be dead."

"Rear Window" was one of Hitchcock's favorite films, as it has been for the audiences as well as critics since it was released by Paramount Pictures in 1954. For the director it represented the extraordinary opportunity of having a whole film seen from the point of view of a character. As for the audience, it gave him the opportunity to do something that many would have wanted: To be the "voyeur" and spy on your neighbors.

Alfred Hitchcock's film "Rear Window" is a Universal Classic, featuring James Stewart and Grace Kelly as protagonists, accompanied by Wendell Carey, Thelma Ritter and Raymond Burr. Produced and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the screenplay belongs to John Michael Hayes, based on Cornell Woolrich's short story "It Had To Be Murder." Robert Burks was the director of photography.

The argument is very simple: An immobilized man (James Stewart) watches his neighbors through the back window of his apartment to pass the time. He feels fascinated by one of the departments in particular, until he slowly realizes that his owner has killed his wife. What follows is how the protagonist convinces the other tenants that there has been a murder, and then tries to have the killer caught, but not before he attempts to kill again. However, in the hands of "The master", a simple story line becomes a humorous and macabre tale able to play with the emotions of the viewer with only the camera movement.

Hitchcock has always been a "voyeur", his camera is the audience’s eyes. With "Rear Window" he exploits a weakness of ours, which is to find out what the neighbor does ... and the problems that this can cause.

The idea for the film came from different sources, especially the infamous case of Patrick Mahon. In this case the murderer dismembered the body of a girl and threw it piece by piece from the window of a train, except the head, which he burned in his fireplace. Hitchcock assigned the task of writing the script to John Michael Hayes, a former radio writer. The director was so pleased with the finished script that Hayes would write three of his following films: "To Catch a Thief", "The Trouble with Harry” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much”.

Hitchcock also knew who he wanted for his leading man: James Stewart who had worked with him on "The Rope" and felt that Jimmy could be perfect to play Jeff, the photographer confined in a wheelchair who is convinced that a murder has been committed in his apartment building. Hitchcock also casted Grace Kelly to play Lisa Freemont, Jeff's girlfriend and "legs". Completing the cast are Wendell Corey as Tom, Jeff's partner in the war and now a detective; Thelma Ritter as Stella, Jeff's nurse, and Raymond Burr, who plays Lars Thorwald, the accused of murder.

The film was shot entirely on set 18 of Paramount Studios. The monumental decoration was 100 feet wide, 200 feet long and 30 feet high, with structures that raised five and six floors. It was the result of months of planning and construction. There were 31 apartments, with most of the action taking place in eight fully furnished rooms, plus a maze of fire escapes, terraces, an alley, a street and the back of the city.

It took more than a thousand arcs of giant lights to illuminate the set from above, while more than two thousand varieties of small lamps were used to have supplementary light. In fact, "Rear Window" was so meticulously planned and calculated before starting the shoot itself, that only a few hundred feet of film with disposable shots were discarded at the end. For their movements, the actors playing Stewart's neighbors received their instructions and directions through a shortwave radio with hidden microphones.

Actually, Hitchcock found himself filming two movies, one with sound and the other silent. The most elaborate shot was a long shot that had to show the whole set at the beginning of the film. The camera had to be raised high above the courtyard of the building, go from one window to the other until, eventually; it stopped at Stewart's apartment. There, Hitchcock made the camera run down his sweaty face until he was seen in the wheelchair, grabbed a thermometer, slid down the casted leg, collected a group of magazines and a shattered camera and then moved to the wall to show a picture taken at the Indianapolis circuit.

This suggested that Stewart's character was a bold photographer who had broken his leg when taking the picture that was on the wall. It also established most of the elements that subsequently developed into the action. There is a constant identification between the character of Stewart and the audience-everything he sees is also seen by the spectator, everyone is exposed to the dangerous potential of "voyeurism." The audience is involved from the beginning given the fact that the credits are projected over closed shutters that a will open one after the other. Then, the viewer is led to identify with Stewart when he identifies with the suspect he is spying on. Enjoying his leisure and wanting to find adventure, he is snooping in a less innocent situation than the viewer watching a movie. And, naturally, the viewer feels as frustrated as Stewart whenever the facts do not justify his deductions.

Everyone likes to know what is happening around them. In "Rear Window", James Stewart has an insatiable curiosity; so much so, that at the end of the film not only has his other leg broken, but it also almost manages to get himself killed. With a camera you can get into someone's personal life and invade their privacy. However, Hitchcock always felt that in reality he was never being an intruder in what he photographed. Instead he thought that his function was to illuminate a situation and then let everyone draw their own conclusions from what they saw.

Rear Window is one of the most memorable Hitchcock’s films. After the credits, the camera slowly approaches the window and makes a first superficial tour of the community's patio that ends with a close-up of Jeff (James Stewart), asleep and sweaty, following an insert of the thermometer indicating that the temperature is, in fact, very high, and without a single word, Hitchcock has already given us a lot of data about the character, as well as about the community in which he lives ".

Architects love this film in particular and it has been analyzed under different lenses in studios and seminars. The film certainly discusses issues of voyeurism; however other topics like architectural section, event structure, the problem of front and back. -There is no apartment building in NYC that has that middle courtyard, so the problem of a second façade comes into the game.

Synopsis

For seven weeks, magazine photographer L. B. Jeffries, whom everyone calls Jeff (James Stewart), has been confined to a wheelchair during a New York heat wave. His leg and hips are immobilized in a cast because of the accident he suffered when the wheel of a racing car he was photographing was released from the car.

To pass the time in his Greenwich Village apartment, Jeff likes to watch what his neighbors do. It is an extremely humid summer, so the blinds, which would normally hide the view of the other tenants' private lives, are rarely lowered.

During his constant gaze, he learns several things, including that marriage is not something he wants to venture on anytime soon, especially now that he feels pressured by his girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly), a sophisticated editor of a fashion magazine. When it comes to the neighbors, it seems that either they are emotionally unstable or tragically confused when choosing a partner: There's Miss Lonely Hearts, an eager spinster of men who has candlelight dinners with an imaginary lover; there is also a middle-aged couple without children who turn their love into a small dog, and also a couple of newlyweds who spend the day making love behind the curtains. Miss Torso is a curvaceous dancer who practices her exercises in her underwear, much to the delight of her neighbors.

Then we also find the eccentric mature artist who is completely dedicated to a new sculpture, while a frustrated music composer tries to find inspiration in alcohol. And then there's Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a traveling salesman who sells jewelry, who constantly has heated arguments with his handicapped wife.

Jeff's boredom makes him crave some excitement: "At this moment I'd love to have a problem," he tells Stella (Thelma Ritter), an ingenious nurse who comes to give him a massage every day. However, he does not have to wait long to see his wishes fulfilled, since that same night Jeff hears a horrifying scream and sees Thorwald making several trips carrying an aluminum suitcase.

Armed with binoculars and a powerful camera, Jeff watches Thorwald clean the suitcase, wash the walls of his bathroom and wrap a saw and a kitchen knife in newspaper. Jeff begins to suspect that the salesman has murdered his wife, chopped up her body and then disposed of her in the little garden part of apartment’s courtyard. But his evidence is too unsustainable to convince his girlfriend Lisa and Tom (Wendell Corey), his comrade-in-arms during the war and now a detective in the homicide section. Jeff's suspicions increase when he watches the little dog sniffing in the garden.

It also intrigues him to see Thorwald rummaging through his wife's bag and jewelry. Lisa deduces that if the woman has gone on a trip, which is quite possible and this would explain her absence. She would have to take the wedding ring with her so she decides to do a little detective work; shortly after  the small dog is found strangled, and all the neighbors have a horrified reaction confronting the fact.

All except Thorwald, who sits alone in his dark apartment. Finally, convinced by Jeff's insistence that a crime has been committed, Lisa and Nurse Stella become the photographer’s legs.

Stella begins to dig in the garden, while Lisa goes to the suspect’s apartment during his absence, trying to find some clues. But she is surprised by Thorwald, who is about to kill her if it wasn’t for the police intervention, Jeff is the one that calls them in complete desperation -; Lisa is taken to jail on charges of attempted theft, but not before she can make Jeff understand that she has found the wedding ring - the necessary evidence -; but the killer has seen where the girl was beckoning at, and that's how he starts to harass Jeff. At Jeff's apartment, Thorwald confronts him and also tries to kill him.

Unable to move from his wheelchair, Jeff's only defense is to use his camera and blinds Thorwald with the flash light. Just at the moment when Thorwald has managed to catch Jeff, the police arrive and shoot the crazed assassin, but not before Jeff has fallen through the window. Although he now has both legs broken, Jeff feels happy, cared for and accompanied by Lisa.

Cast

James Stewart as L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies

Grace Kelly as Lisa Carol Fremont

Wendell Corey as NYPD Det. Lt. Thomas "Tom" J. Doyle

Thelma Ritter as Stella

Raymond Burr as Lars Thorwald

Judith Evelyn as Miss Lonelyhearts

Ross Bagdasarian as the songwriter

Georgine Darcy as Miss Torso

Frank Cady and Sara Berner as the husband and wife, living above the Thorwalds, with their dog

Jesslyn Fax as "Miss Hearing Aid"

Rand Harper and Havis Davenport as Newlyweds

Irene Winston as Mrs. Anna Thorwald

ted, Lisa and Nurse Stella become the photographer’s legs.