- That's a secret, private world you're looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn't possibly explain in public.
- L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) has it rough. He's an adventuresome photojournalist accustomed to traveling a world in which, by his account, "you don't sleep very much, you bathe less, and sometimes the food that you eat is made from things that you couldn't even look at when they're alive." That's not the rough part, though. The rough part is that his most recent mis-adventure (involving photography on a racetrack) resulted in some wonderful shots and, unfortunately for Jeff, a broken leg. Now, Jeff is confined to his apartment, where his cantankerous nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) and his glamourous Park Avenue girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) are his only companions. That is, unless you count his neighbors.
- Jeff's neighbors are a fascinating lot. There's the alluring "Miss Torso," a ballet dancer whom Jeff describes as "a Queen Bee with her pick of the drones." Her active night life forms a stark contrast to that of the depressive "Miss Lonely Hearts," who sits in an empty apartment rehearsing a date that may never occur. Let's not forget the struggling musician, the newlyweds, the nosy artist, or the married couple and their dog. Jeff doesn't know any of these neighbors personally, but the sights and sounds of their lives drift in through his window day and night. Of course, the most interesting neighbor proves to be Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr), a dour-looking salesman whose bedridden wife nags him night and day. Late on one particularly sleepless night, Jeff hears a woman's scream and spies Thorwald conveying a large case in and out of his apartment. Does he really just like the "way his wife welcomes him home" or does this particular example of strange, private behavior represent something much more sinister?
- Before long, the strange goings-on across the courtyard begin to convince Jeff, Lisa, and Stella that the mysterious Thorwald may actually have killed his wife. As Jeff tells his friend in the police force, Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey), "everything (Thorwald's) done has been suspicious: Trips at night in the rain, knives, saws, trunks with rope, and now this wife that isn't there anymore." Doyle's brief investigation, however, suggests that Thorwald's wife has simply gone out of town. Still, what kind of woman would leave without taking her wedding ring? And did Thorwald really kill a helpless little dog because it got too curious about what was buried in the garden? Now the race is on to discover what Thorwald is really up to before the suspicious salesman slips out of town. Of course, catching a killer is considerably more dangerous than spying on him...
- Rear Window is an absolutely amazing film in nearly every respect. From a technical standpoint, it features one of the best sets ever constructed, and you'd be hard pressed to find better use of ambient sound and music in any film. Although the neighbors are near enough to be heard, they're far enough removed that Hitchcock can also rely heavily upon his famous visual style of storytelling, which is probably never better than in this film. Rather than being introduced to the neighbors through expository dialogue, we simply get to know them by watching along in the first person through Jeff's zoom lens. Of course, all of this is not to suggest that the film's writing should be ignored. The dialogue between the four main characters is exceptionally witty and Grace Kelly's "preview of coming attractions" line may be the sexiest ever spoken onscreen (helped a bit by who said it, I suppose). Remarkably, the film also has a lot going on beneath its surface, doubling as an interesting exploration of relationships, both experienced and viewed through a window. The combined result is a film experience that is captivating, suspenseful, and, like all of Hitchcock's great works, supremely entertaining.
- I spotted Hitchcock winding the clock in the composer's apartment.
