Rear Window is a thriller/comedy directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Raymond Burr, Thelma Ritter, and Wendall Corey. It's also the first movie that comes up if you type "rear" into the search bar in IMBD, thank goodness.
L. B. Jeffries (Stewart) is a globetrotting photographer who gets laid up with a broken leg after trying to take pictures of a car race in the middle of the track. Going a bit stir-crazy in his apartment, he passes the time in the incredibly hot summer months (with the mercury reaching almost 90! OMG!) watching his neighbors across the courtyard. He has little nicknames for all of them and is generally following their lives with some amusement, chatting about what he sees to Stella (Ritter), the nurse who comes to massage his muscles and look in on him every day. He's also coping with relationship problems with his girlfriend Lisa (Kelly), a socialite; he feels that her lifestyle and his won't actually mesh long-term.
And then one night while he's sleeping in his wheelchair, he hears a scream and breaking glass. He wakes and watches his neighbor Lars Thornwald (Burr) making several trips out in the rain with a suitcase, and slowly becomes convince that Thornwald has murdered and possibly dismembered his bedridden wife (Irene Winston). From there, it's a murder mystery as the sleuth - Jeffries - calls in favors from his police detective friend Doyle (Corey) to try and pin down what happened to Mrs. Thornwald.
I guess calling this movie a thriller/comedy might not be entirely accurate? I don't know, I think it fits. The scenes between Kelly and Stewart definitely play like a comedy, and the dialog remains snappy throughout. As always, there are some scenes that seem kind of quaint to modern eyes - it's a Big Screaming Deal that Lisa is going to spend the night at Jeffries' apartment, even though they make sure to point out that they're not actually going to sleep together (gasp!). I do enjoy that the movie takes a bit of time to point out that spying on one's neighbors and hoping for something sordid is kind of ghoulish, and I like that it provides enough evidence for Jeffries to reasonably continue to suspect Thornwald while at the same time not providing anything so obvious that Doyle is a complete idiot for not taking it seriously.
Michelle loves this movie and we were talking about how a remake/update might work. I think it's one of those movies that probably doesn't work if you have modern technology and setting, but maybe if social media, our modern-day equivalent of peeing in open windows, were more involved?
My Grade: A
Rewatch Value: Medium
Next up: Shanghai Noon
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