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Rear Window
(1954)
In Alfred Hitchcock's superb nail-biting thriller
about a mostly confined incapacitated photographer with a broken
leg in his apartment, he kept occupied by his rear window view
into other apartments across the building's courtyard -
it was an intriguing, brilliant, macabre visual study of obsessive
human curiosity and voyeurism. Remarkably,
the camera angles were largely from the protagonist's own apartment,
so the film viewer (in a dark theatre) saw the inhabitants of the
other apartments almost entirely from his point of view - to share
in his voyeuristic surveillance.
The glowingly-beautiful Grace Kelly won the Best Actress
Oscar in the same year for her deglamourized role in The Country
Girl (1954). This was her second of three films for Hitchcock
(she had already made Dial M for
Murder (1954) and would next star in To
Catch a Thief (1955)), before leaving acting in 1956 to marry
Prince Rainier of Monaco.
Hitchcock's masterpiece received only four Academy
Award nominations (with no Oscars): Best Director, Best Screenplay
(John Michael Hayes), Best Color Cinematography (Robert Burks), and
Best Sound Recording. John Michael Hayes' screenplay was based on
Cornell Woolrich's (with pen-name William
Irish) original 1942 short story or novelette, It Had to Be Murder.
- in the opening voyeuristic sequence of efficient
visual story-telling, the camera tracked out through the
framed windows of a Greenwich Village apartment (surrounded by
other Lower East Side apartment structures), and introduced the
setting and entire complex - a lower courtyard and garden; tracking
back into the open apartment window, the apartment's occupant was
asleep, sweating profusely - it was 94 degrees on the thermometer
- during a heat wave
Neighbors Within Jeff's View in His Greenwich Village
Apartment Complex
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Songwriter/Composer (Ross Bagdasarian) Shaving
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"Miss Torso" (Georgine Darcy) Doing Exercises
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Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) Arguing With Sick Wife Anna in Bedroom
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- the opening camera tracking was followed by a
long panning camera movement to view the lives of some of the apartment
neighbors, including a composer/songwriter (Ross Bagdasarian) shaving
(and later playing the piano), an older dog-loving couple (Sara
Berner and Frank Cady) sleeping on an outside fire escape to avoid
the heat, and a blonde exerciser known as "Miss
Torso" (Georgine Darcy) doing exercises and chores at the same
time; the panning shot also included a tour of the 2nd floor
apartment of the protagonist - a man immobilized in a wheelchair,
who was identified L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies
(James Stewart); his left leg was in a cast - inscribed: "Here lie the broken
bones of L. B. Jefferies"; clues in the apartment (photos and camera
equipment) hinted at his dangerous occupation; seven weeks earlier,
he sustained his fractured-leg injury in a crash while he was photographing
a car race from the middle of the track to get a "dramatic" photo;
it was suggested that his blonde fashion-model girlfriend
was shown on the cover of a large stack of LIFE Magazines, labeled "Paris Fashions"
- Jeff also observed one grouchy neighbor in the
opposite apartment, later identified as Lars Thorwald (Raymond
Burr), who returned home from work (framed
in one window) and argued with his blonde-haired, nagging, sick,
negligee-clad wife Anna Thorwald (Irene Winston) who was lying in bed
- later, Jeff was visited by his sharp-tongued
nurse-therapist and masseuse Stella McCaffery (Thelma Ritter) from
the insurance company, who disapproved of his spying on neighbors
and denounced the practice: "Oh
dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people oughta do
is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir.
How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?"; the confined
Jeff's "peeping tom" static camera point-of-view was from his Greenwich Village
apartment's rear window where he was stuck in his wheelchair
- Stella also cautioned Jeff about
his lack of roots and commitment, his sidestepping of marriage and
his lukewarm attitude toward Lisa Carol Fremont (Grace Kelly), his
fashion-model girlfriend; he explained how she was too different
from him, as a "Park Avenue" woman - too rich, "too
perfect," spoiled, sophisticated and incompatible for his lifestyle
- just before Stella left, Jeff saw a newlywed couple
move in - the Newlyweds (Havis Davenport and Rand Harper), who
kissed and closed their blinds
- as the stationary Jeff dozed off at sunset, his
high-fashion model and girlfriend Lisa glamorously appeared
in front of him - she was a stylish vision
of beauty - elegant, lovely, affluent, and blonde; she bent over,
and then lovingly kissed him, roused and awakened him from his sleep;
she suggestively whispered a number of questions to him: " Lisa: "How's
your leg?" Jeff: "It hurts a little." Lisa: "And
your stomach?" Jeff: "Empty as a football." (She kissed
him again) Lisa: "And your love life?" Jeff: "Not
too active." Lisa: (smiling) "Anything else bothering you?" Jeff: "Mm-hmm.
Who are you?"; as she flicked on the apartment's lights one-by-one,
she told him her name, disjointedly: "Lisa - Carol - Fremont."
Jeff's Girlfriend - Glamorous Model Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly)
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- she also introduced herself to him by performing
and posing in front of him while glamorously dressed in a new,
fashionable, and expensive $1,100 haute-couture Parisian gown;
they shared a catered lobster dinner and chilled wine in an ice
bucket delivered by a uniformed, red-coated waiter from the Twenty-One
Club, to celebrate the last week of Jeff's imprisonment in a cast;
she promised Jeff: "I'm going to make this a week you'll
never forget," but he essentially rejected her efforts to get him
established in the New York fashion photography industry
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Jeff Observing Spinster "Miss Lonelyhearts" (Judith
Evelyn)
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- while experiencing some romantic tensions together,
Jeff watched across the way as a lonely, middle-aged spinster (Judith
Evelyn), dubbed 'Miss Lonelyhearts,' set a table for two, put
a bottle of wine on the table and lit the candles, while fantasizing
through pantomiming with a gentleman caller who had arrived to be
with her; Jeff was also distracted by watching "Miss Torso" juggling
three suitors, while Thorwald served his wife dinner and then was
caught having a clandestine conversation on the phone with another
lover; director Hitchcock's cameo took place in the songwriter's
apartment as he fixed a clock; Jeff and Lisa continued to have their
own strained relationship, since Jeff was unwilling to commit to
her and thus compromise his own career; they argued and appeared
on the verge of breaking up for good before she left him to go home for the night
- later that evening - a stormy night, there was a suspicious
female scream and the sound of breaking glass; he watched the mysterious
and suspicious comings and goings on the part of his across-the-courtyard
neighbor Lars Thorwald, who was making repeated late-night trips
carrying a heavy and then emptied suitcase; early the next morning
while Jeff slept, Thorwald left his apartment with an unidentified
middle-aged woman dressed in black; when Stella arrived, Jeff told
her about Thorwald's strange behavior, and speculated Thorwald was
taking something out of the apartment - an alleged murder theory;
he offered Stella more morbid theories and observations about Thorwald's suspicious activities
- as they both stared over at Thorwald's apartment,
with the shades up, Thorwald glanced back - and he cautioned
Stella to get out of the line of sight: "That's no ordinary look.
That's the kind of a look a man gives when he's afraid somebody might
be watching him"; Thorwald was actually watching the fire-escape
couple's little dog sniffing around the rose bushes in the flower
bed of his garden
The Next Morning: Views From Jeff's Apartment Rear Window
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Jeff's Comment to Stella: "That's no ordinary look"
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The Couple's Little Dog Sniffing Around Flower Bed in Thorwald's Garden
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Thorwald Replacing Items in His Sample Case
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Thorwald Wrapping Up a Saw Blade and Butcher Knife
in His Kitchen
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- as Stella was leaving, Jeff asked for her to reach
for his binoculars, and she warned: "Trouble, I can smell
it"; not satisfied, he grabbed his huge, high-powered telephoto
lens - not to take pictures but to use them as long-range binoculars;
as Jeff viewed the salesman replacing items in his sample case, wrapping a saw blade
and a butcher knife in newspaper in his kitchen, and also noticed that Thorwald's
wife was missing from the apartment
- later that evening, Jeff and a very provocative Lisa
passionately hugged and kissed in his apartment, as she asked: "How far
does a girl have to go before you notice her?...Pay attention to me"; she
was mostly being romantically ignored and overlooked as Jeff became
more and more obsessed about discussing his neighbor's nocturnal activities;
when he mentioned how difficult it would be to cut up a human body, Lisa
became critical that he had become an obsessed Peeping Tom, as Stella
had earlier warned: ("You're beginning to scare me a little")
- Jeff watched as Thorwald carried a heavy rope and walked into his wife's
shaded bedroom, and looked like he was picking up something very
heavy; they both watched as Thorwald tied up a very large wooden
crate with a rope in front of a rolled-up mattress in his wife's
bedroom, and then sat by himself in the living room in the dark;
Lisa began to conclude that Jeff's insane, sinister, and imaginative
conclusions might be accurate: ("Let's start from the beginning again,
Jeff. Tell me everything you saw and what you think it means");
later in the night, to provide Jeff with "legs," Lisa (on her way
home) went to Thorwald's mailbox and read off his name and address
to Jeff by phone; at the same time, Thorwald was smoking a cigarette
by himself in his living room in the dark
Thorwald Returning and Carrying a Long Rope
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Thorwald Putting a Rope Around a Wooden Crate in His Wife's Bedroom
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Lisa - Now Convinced That Jeff's Theories Might be True
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- the next morning, as Stella served breakfast to
Jeff, she hypothesized that Thorwald had cut up the body in the bathtub
to wash away the blood; Jeff's continuing obsession with his neighbor
was further strengthened when he watched two parcel-post delivery
men arrive at Thorwald's apartment to pick up the wooden crate
- during a visit by Jeff's NYC plain-clothes police
detective friend Lt. Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), he attempted to dissuade
Jeff from his exaggerated observations and argued that he had misinterpreted
evidence of a murder - " This is a thousand to one shot," and
that there must be "a very simple explanation" for everything, but then promised
to "poke around" a little; later in the
day, Tom reported back in person to Jeff that witnesses saw Thorwald
leave the apartment with his wife the previous morning at about 6
am (while Jeff was sleeping) to go to the railroad station; Tom also
refused to issue a search warrant without more substantial evidence,
and produced one further finding - a postcard was found in Thorwald's
mailbox from his wife in nearby Meritsville about her safe arrival
- that evening, Jeff noticed that Thorwald arrived home,
took shirts out of a laundry box and began packing a suitcase as
if he was leaving permanently; he also rummaged through his wife's
alligator handbag, and handled her jewelry and pearl necklace, including
a gold-banded (wedding?) ring
- Lisa arrived (prepared to stay for
the weekend with one small handbag-sized black "suitcase" filled
with frilly, pink, overnight lingerie and slippers) and appeared convinced
of Thorwald's guilt; she questioned why Mrs. Thorwald would unpredictably
leave behind her "favorite handbag" (with jewelry); she
also speculated that Thorwald was involved in an adulterous
relationship with a female accomplice in the murder of his wife;
however, their suspicions were debunked when Tom arrived and confirmed
that everything checked out: Thorwald's trunk was intercepted
with no evidence of foul play, and it was delivered to Mrs. Thorwald
in Meritsville; he speculated there was a "family
problem" and she wasn't planning on coming back
- both Jeff and Lisa began to thoughtfully feel that
their meddling into the lives of his neighbors was unethical and
improper snooping that it had been proven unfruitful: (Lisa:
"I'm not much on rear-window ethics....You'd think we could be a
little bit happier that the poor woman is alive and well....The show's
over for tonight" - and she prepared to have an intimate evening
with Jeff by lowering the blinds and putting on her pink silk nightgown
Thorwald Looking at Wife's Gold Wedding Ring From Her Purse
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Lisa Intrigued - and Questioning Why a Wife Would Leave Behind Her Handbag
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Couple's Discovery of Their Strangled Dog in Courtyard:
("Which one of you did it? Which one of you killed my dog?")
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Jeff to Lisa: "In the whole courtyard, only one person didn't come to the
window"
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- suddenly, there was a scream from the female dog owner
on the outer fire escape - the upstairs older couple's little
dog (that was earlier seen digging in the garden) was found dead
in the courtyard from strangulation; the dead dog laid on the
concrete in front of Thorwald's garden - maliciously killed with its
neck broken; the female dog owner asked: ("Which one of you did it?
Which one of you killed my dog?");
Jeff noticed that the only person in the courtyard who didn't emerge
from inside when the dog was discovered was Thorwald, seen smoking
a glowing cigarette in his darkened apartment
- the next day, Jeff's nurse Stella and Lisa (in a flower-print
dress) watched out Jeff's rear window as Thorwald was seen scrubbing
the walls of the bathroom above the tub in his apartment - possibly confirming
that he had murdered his wife and dismembered her body in the bath-tub;
Jeff also theorized that the dog had become "too inquisitive," so
Thorwald had to dig up some incriminating object (Mrs. Thorwald's
ring or the saw or knife) from the flower bed and move it elsewhere,
and then murdered the snooping dog
- to confront the possible killer, Jeff had Lisa deliver
an anonymous note to his door asking: "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH
HER?" and she barely missed being detected; the group watched as Lars looked
in his wife's handbag (with her gold ring inside?) and then packed
it in his suitcase; Lisa and Stella also daringly suggested digging
in the garden for evidence (while Thorwald was lured away to the
nearby Albert Hotel), but when they didn't find anything in the garden,
Lisa impulsively decided to enter Thorwald's apartment (via the fire-escape
and an open living room window) to look for the wife's wedding ring;
meanwhile, 'Miss Lonelyhearts' was conducting a distracting suicide
attempt on the ground floor due to her failure to find a suitable companion
- in the film's most suspenseful
scene, Lisa tensely explored and searched in suspected wife-murderer
Thorwald's apartment for incriminating evidence - she was ecstatic
when she found the alligator hand-bag, but it was empty, so she then
turned to keep looking for his wife's favorite jewelry - left behind;
as she held up the necklace, Jeff nervously reacted as Thorwald returned,
and he watched powerlessly and helplessly from across the courtyard
as Lisa became trapped and was confronted face-to-face in the apartment
by Thorwald; caught, she handed over the necklace and then was assaulted;
as she struggled with Thorwald in the dark, Lisa was rescued when
the police arrived in the apartment's corridor just in time to prevent
any serious injury
Using Lisa to Infiltrate Into Thorwald's Apartment
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- during questioning, to signal that she had found
the wedding ring, Lisa pointed to Thorwald's wife's wedding ring on
her own finger that she waved behind her back; Lars noticed her
signals and the wedding ring, and followed the sight-line of the
signal sent by Lisa (behind her back) to Jeff in his apartment and
triangulated the view - he spotted the mortal threat
- Thorwald looked up and discovered that Jeff,
his tormentor, was watching from the apartment window across the
courtyard, looking directly into his telephoto lens; it was the
first time he had noticed the voyeuristic spy in the apartment
complex - it was a chilling moment in the film as he saw the threatening
spectator and knew where he lived; Thorwald was alerted to the
fact that he was being watched, and the tables were now turned
- Jeff was left alone in his apartment when Stella left to bail Lisa out of
jail for possible first-offense burglary charges; after Det. Doyle
called and listened to Jeff's further suspicions, he promised to "run
it down" and release Lisa from jail without the need of bail
money; when Jeff's phone rang again, Jeff didn't wait to hear who the
caller was, assuming it was Tom; he blurted out: "Tom,
I think Thorwald's left. I don't...Hello.."; the phone clicked
off and disconnected - Jeff slowly realized his error - it was not
Tom, his detective friend; he noticed that Thorwald's apartment remained
dark, and turned his wheelchair over closer toward his front door as
he heard heavy footsteps climbing the stairs outside his apartment
- in the tension-filled finale, when Jeff was
confronted by the killer in his own apartment - he grabbed his flash
equipment and a long box of flashbulbs to protect himself; then,
he positioned himself in front of his rear window so that he was
darkly silhouetted by it; eventually, the dark figure of Thorwald
slowly opened the door, entered, and queried Jeff: "What do you want
from me? Your friend, the girl, could have turned me in. Why didn't
she? What is it you want? A lot of money? I don't have any money.
Say something. Say something. Tell me what you want! Can you get
me that ring back?"
- at first, Jeff fended him off with bright flash-bulb
flashes from his camera and its exploding flash mechanism - once,
twice, three times, and then a fourth time; each whitish-blue flashbulb
flash was followed by a red after-glow filling the entire frame,
from Thorwald's dazed perspective; but then Jeff was attacked and became
a victim of attempted strangulation
- Thorwald dumped Jeff out of the wheelchair and
through the open window, where he dangled
from the window ledge three floors above the courtyard as Thorwald
tried to push him to his death; Lisa, Stella, Doyle and other detectives
arrived at Thorwald's apartment and were alerted to Jeff's predicament;
a group of officers grabbed Lars from behind at the last minute,
but Jeff let go from the ledge and fell backwards to the ground below
- his fall to the courtyard was partially broken by two detectives
beneath him; reunited, Jeff's head was cradled in Lisa's arms as
she heard him congratulate her: "I'm
proud of you"
- Jeff learned that his suspicions were
well-founded - a detective shouted down to Doyle: "Thorwald's
ready to take us on a tour of the East River" - he had confessed;
he murdered his wife, dismembered her, and distributed his wife's
body parts in various locations; Thorwald also said that the dog
had become "too
inquisitive" and he was forced to dig
up Mrs. Thorwald's head from the flower garden bed and move it to
a hat box in his apartment
- in the film's epilogue composed of a lengthy tracking
shot around the apartment complex, 'Miss Lonelyhearts' thanked the
composer for his music that saved her life; Thorwald's vacated apartment
was being repainted; the dog-couple had acquired a new puppy, 'Miss
Torso' greeted her Army-uniformed soldier boyfriend (or husband?)
and true love Stanley, and the newlyweds were seen quarreling with
each other
- the camera rested on Jeff with his back to his rear
window, now with a cast on both of his broken legs; the ending shot
was of a masculine-dressed, pants-wearing Lisa reading an adventure
tale - Beyond the High Himalayas,
by William O. Douglas; after noticing that Jeff was asleep and not
watching her, she switched off her male image by putting down her material
and assertively substituting her own preferred Harper's Bazaar magazine
- the deeply ironic final shot was of a window shade
rolling down on the voyeuristic film audience before the ending Paramount
Studios logo
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Greenwich Village Apartment Courtyard
Immobilized Man in a Wheelchair, "Jeff" Jeffries
(James Stewart)
Jeff's Leg Cast: "Here lie the broken bones of L. B. Jefferies"
Jeff's Nurse-Therapist Stella (Thelma Ritter) and Masseuse
The Newlyweds
Lisa Performing For Him in an Expensive Parisian Gown
A Catered Lobster Dinner To Celebrate the Last Week of Jeff's Cast
More Late Night Observations of Thorwald Coming and Going
Jeff's Voyeurism With His Binoculars and Camera's Telephoto
Lens
Jeff and Lisa Kissing, But Jeff Was Still Distracted
Lisa to Jeff: "You're beginning to scare me a little"
Stella's Hypothesis: The Body of Thorwald's Wife Was Cut
Up in the Bathtub
Two Delivery Men Picked Up the Wooden Crate in the Bedroom
Jeff's Doubting Plainclothes Police Detective Friend Lt.
Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey)
Trio of Suspicious Onlookers The Next Day After the Murder of the Little
Dog
Jeff's Note to Be Delivered by Lisa to Thorwald's Door
Thorwald Reading Note
Thorwald's Discovery of Jeff's Spying - The Sightline to Jeff's Across-the-Way
Apartment
Thorwald's Discovery of Jeff's Location During a Phone
Call
Thorwald in Jeff's Apartment, Using Flash-Bulbs to Ward Off Attacking
Thorwald
Jeff Assaulted and Thrown Out His Window by
Thorwald
After Jeff's Fall, Jeff told Lisa: "I'm
proud of you"
Jeff With a Cast on Both Broken Legs
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