Rear Window (1954)

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Music: Franz Waxman
Cinematography: Robert Burks
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly,
Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey,
Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn,
Georgine Darcy, Ross Bagdasarian,
Sara Berner, Frank Cady,
Jesslyn Fax, Rand Harper,
Havis Davenport, Irene Winston

As I’ve mentioned before, Alfred Hitchcock’s films hold a strange fascination for me. The dialling up of suspense, the background music that elevates the suspense, the setting, scenes and dialogues… all work their magic on me, even if I’ve watched the film before and know the who, how and why. I’ve previously reviewed several of the Master of Suspense’s movies, both classics and the not-as-well-known ones – Notorious, Rope, Dial M for Murder, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, To Catch A Thief, Suspicion, Mr & Mrs Smith, The Trouble With Harry, North by Northwest, The Lady Vanishes, etc.

But it’s been a while since I reviewed a Hitchcock film. So, sometime last year, I’d decided that since Hitchcock was born in August, this month would showcase some more of his films, from his earlier ones to the Hollywood period. I even roped Shalini in, and together, we made a list of six films that we thought would highlight the art and craft of suspense in his films. Unfortunately, we were only able to watch three out of the six films we had shortlisted.
So, let me begin with the last film we watched.

The film begins with a long expository shot that gives us a glimpse into a neighbourhood. The camera pans from a couple sleeping on the fire escape due to the heat, and just waking up, to the apartment of a dancer who’s getting ready for the day. It then moves to a shot of an alleyway and a water tanker spraying the road. Slowly, it pulls back and enters an apartment through a window. We see a man sleeping in a wheelchair. 

He’s recuperating from a broken leg, a relic of his previous assignment; a close-up of the cast identifies the man as LB Jeffries (James Stewart). [“Here lies the broken bones of LB Jeffries”, reads one inscription.] Then, the camera pulls back to show a smashed camera, a photograph of a car, whose wheel is hurtling towards the camera, photographs of explosions, more cameras and other photographic paraphernalia.

Me: It’s a stunning economical shot – these 90 seconds or so establish for us who Stewart is, and the environment he’s in.

Bored out of his head, Jeff has taken to spying on his neighbours, first with binoculars and then using his zoom lens. 

 Me: A critic once said that Rear Window was a visualisation of Hitchcock’s voyeurism.
Shalini: That’s a very accurate and succinct description of the man and his cinema.

[Both Shalini and I take a moment to appreciate Jimmy’s baby blues. And talk about how cute he is. Not gorgeous like Cary Grant, but handsome in his own right.]

Jeff’s apartment window looks out onto an open inner courtyard, and since it is so hot, none of his neighbours bother with closing their curtains. Jeff has a virtual smorgasbord of people to watch, people whom he has nicknamed ‘Travelling Salesman’, ‘Miss Lonely Heart’, ‘Miss Torso’, etc. There’s a struggling lyricist/composer and a couple who sleep on their balcony (Sara Berner, Frank Cady) and lower their beloved dog in a basket into the garden below.

They all lead, at least to Jeff, far more interesting lives than he does – Miss Torso (Georgine Darcy), for instance, a young ballet dancer, who practices her plies and Arabesques during the day, and entertains several men in the evenings.

Miss Lonely Heart (Judith Evelyn), a middle-aged spinster, who, in the evenings, curls her hair, applies make-up and sets the table for a romantic candlelight dinner. She even talks to an invisible beau before curling up and bursting into tears, perhaps aware of how ridiculous she is being. 

The songwriter (Ross Bagdasarian), perhaps aware that his career is going nowhere, is partial to drink. There’s a newlywed couple (Rand Harper, Havis Davenport) who have just moved into a apartment on the ground floor. And the travelling salesman (Raymond Burr) and his wife (Irene Winston), an invalid, who is bed-bound. Their living room and bedroom windows are always open, and their interactions – she nagging, he frustrated – increase the already commitment-phobic Jeff’s cynicism.

These neighbours – and their lives – are a microcosm of society that Jeff is alternately amused and intrigued by. The drama of their lives keeps the tedium away. Not that Jeff lacks company himself. 

Stella (Thelma Ritter), a nurse assigned by the insurance company, comes in daily to help Jeff clean up and to massage his back. She is also comfortingly commonsensical and prone to speaking her mind. His voyeurism horrifies her and she informs him that the New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the workhouse. “And they got no windows in the workhouse, she adds. "In the old days they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker.” Marry Lisa, she tells him. 

But James doesn't want to. Lisa's "too perfect. She's too talented, too beautiful, too sophisticated... she's too everything but what I want."  

Lisa (Grace Kelly) and Jeff couldn’t be more different – he’s a magazine photographer, she’s a wealthy socialite. He spends his time travelling to remote places to shoot dangerous events; she buys a dress worth $1100 because she’s expected to never wear a dress a second time.

Shalini: I want that dress though I would not look like Grace in it.
Me: No one could look like Grace Kelly, woman! Except Grace, I mean.

Jeff is very aware of the very different lives they lead; she’s sure that she couldn’t care less what he does for a living, though she hopes he will one day open his own studio and stay put in New York with her. She is equally willing to give up her job as fashion editor and go with him wherever he goes. 

Me: He’s very rude to her. And condescending about her work. To be fair, she’s very thoughtless about his career.
Shalini: I don’t think either understands the other.

As we were chatting, Jeff was busy observing Miss Torso entertain. “Juggling wolves”, comments Lisa, and I grin.

Shalini: That’s the essence of him, right? He’s a photographer, so he’s an observer of people by nature, by temperament and by profession.

And that’s what Lisa doesn’t get. Lisa wants commitment. Jeff hopes to retain the status quo. Hurt, Lisa leaves. Only to return the following evening.

[We both agree that this one scene establishes the relationship between the two; we get the sense that this is a recurring argument between them].
Me: He’s very contradictory, no? He’s been chasing her away from him but when she says ‘goodbye’, he doesn’t want her to go.
Shalini: It does make him more human and the relationship more equal. He loves her… just doesn’t see how they can have a future together.

But in the meantime, Jeff has had an interesting night. Unable to sleep, he’s back at his favourite pastime. At which point, he sees the salesman putting on his coat and hat and picking up his sample case and going out. 

He returns three-quarters of an hour later, only to go out again. Rinse and repeat a third time.

Jeff is intrigued – it’s three in the morning!

The next morning, his interest still piqued, Jeff picks up his binoculars and then his zoom lens to peer into the salesman’s house. The blinds are down in the bedroom, but through the living room window, Jeff can see the salesman wrapping a wicked knife and a saw in newspaper.

Jeff, until then merely inquisitive, is now extremely suspicious. When Lisa arrives that evening, she scoffs at his theory.

Me: Grace Kelly is kissing him, and he wants to talk about the salesman?
[Shalini agrees, but her attention is caught by Grace’s dress.]
Shalini: I’m glad Hitch put in this scene of Lisa disapproving of Jeff’s voyeurism.

But she's forced to give credence to Jeff's suspicions when she notices the salesman bind a trunk with stout cord. Eventually, Lisa goes off to see who the man is. ‘Lars Thorwald’ reads the name on the address board.

When Stella arrives the next morning, she is drawn into the drama as well. She begins to speculate just where Thorwald could have killed his wife; it had to be the bathtub. That's the only place where he could have washed away the blood. 

But now, he must get rid of the trunk, musn't he? It would begin to leak soon. 

Prophetic words that. As she and Jeff keep watch, two men arrive, employees of a freight company arrive. Thorwald hands the trunk over, and even though Stella rushes off to see if she can spot the name of the freight company, she’s too late.

Jeff is sure that Thorwald is up to no good. Where is Mrs Thorwald? She could hardly walk. Where could she be? What’s with the knife and the saw? And why did Mr Thorwald go out thrice during the stormy night? And what’s in that trunk?

But, what can Jeff do? He’s an invalid himself. So he phones his friend, Detective Lt.Thomas Doyle (Wendell Corey) and asks him to come over. When he does, Jeff places his ‘evidence’ in front of him. 

Doyle is not very receptive. Should Jeff really be prying into his neighbours’ lives? There could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything that Jeff witnessed. But Jeff’s insistence badgers Doyle into acquiescence. Reluctantly, he promises to make a few discreet enquiries into Thorwald.

What he does turn up upsets Jeff’s theories – Mrs Thorwald has gone away on a holiday. She left at 6 a.m., a fact confirmed by the building superintendent. The trunk was collected by Mrs Thorwald, as confirmed by the cop that Doyle had sent to check. Nothing to see there. It’s all above board.

Is it? Jeff isn't convinced.

Based on Cornell Woolrich’s short story, ’It Had to be Murder’, and adapted by John Michael Hayes, Rear Window is one of Alfred Hitchcock’s best suspense films. This was Hitchcock at his peak – the tightness of the script, the attention to detail, the slickness of the pace all meld with the fine performances that he’s able to extract from his actors. As Shalini mentioned, Hitchcock’s peak period began with Spellbound and continued through to North by Northwest.

While his films are renowned for their breathtaking visuals and thrilling chases, Hitchcock was also past master at building suspense within a confined environment. In Rope, where the action is confined to two rooms and the view of the street from a window, as well as here, he builds up the claustrophobia.

Here is a mystery where the murder is committed in the open (so to speak). It is our armchair detective who’s immobile. Hitchcock presents his voyeurism, warts and all. He plays upon the prurient interest that people have in their fellow humans. It shocks us, but it also excites us to see what’s going on in others’ houses. The writing is clever – with the affable James Stewart as the protagonist, we are more inclined to identify with him, and even sympathise with the allure that it holds for him, stuck as he is in a wheelchair with nothing to do but wait for his leg to heal.

Shalini: It’s a self-contained world that Hitch takes us into, isn’t it? The attention to detail is stunning.
Me: Yes, it is. And to think this was a set – I was thinking how realistic the apartment windows overlooking other apartments truly is, in cities like New York.
[The whole apartment complex was built on the largest lot at Paramount Studios. The lighting for the shoot was done in advance, with three levels of lighting kept ready – morning, evening and night.]
Shalini: People don’t think about movies like Rear Window when they speak of great cinematography but, in my opinion, this takes as much, or maybe more skill than shooting sweeping vistas.
Me: I think it takes more skill, actually. The space is so tight that getting the bird’s-eye view shots is incredible. We are literally seeing what Stewart is seeing.
Shalini: Exactly. The cinematography is critical in immersing the viewer into this apartment complex, which in turn is vital to us investing in Stewart’s actions.

Similarly, in other films, Hitchcock presents us with heroes who are presumed guilty and struggle to prove their innocence. Here, he gives us a protagonist who struggles to persuade people of another man’s guilt. 

James Stewart is, on the face of it, a strange choice to play this role. He typically portrayed the ‘every man’ – affable, easy-to-like characters, whom we could relate to. Here, as in Rope (his first film with Hitchcock), Stewart is more distant, slightly cold, and someone slow to action. Not just because of his present disability, but due to his proclivity for watching rather than doing.

Physicality plays a huge part in how we express ourselves, and to be able to do justice to a character’s emotions and feelings without moving about, one must have immense control over their craft. Stewart is able to express his restlessness, his feeling of being trapped, etc., within the space of a few scenes. We almost feel what he’s feeling – the way he itches under his plaster, for instance. It’s such a silly thing, but so natural. Stewart fleshed out the ‘man in a chair with a broken leg’ character to make us see what’s inside.

Grace Kelly. Her entry into the frame has been referred to as ‘the most perfect entrance made by an actress on film.’ I cannot disagree. As a shadow falls over the sleeping Jeff’s face, we, the audience, are primed for something sinister. But Hitchcock cuts to a shot of her beautiful face in a tight close-up, highlighting her almost preternatural beauty. 

As she kisses Jeff, he deadpans, “Who are you?” And Lisa, playing along, introduces herself: “From top to bottom, Lisa. Carol. Fremont.” As she utters each name, she switches on a lamp, until finally she’s revealed in all her stunning glory.

Hitchcock heroines are typically not given a lot to do. Other than being blonde and beautiful. But, after working with the famed director in Dial M for Murder, where she played ‘damsel in distress’, Kelly gets to be more active here. She also brings an emotional heft to her role as ‘glamorous girlfriend’. Watch her in the scene following her introduction.
“Jeff, you don’t have to be deliberately repulsive just to impress me I’m wrong!”
You can almost witness her heart breaking.

Lisa may be a wealthy socialite who wears beautiful dresses and loves to spoil Jeff with champagne and catered dinners, but she’s also hopelessly in love with Jeff, who keeps her at arm’s length. Kelly’s performance in Rear Window is often overlooked, but both Shalini and I agreed that she invested her character with so much more than the script afforded. From the young woman who wears her heart on her sleeve, Lisa evolves into someone who, perhaps to prove to Jeff that she can be his partner both personally and professionally, is willing to put herself at risk to prove Jeff's theory. 

 

 

Kelly’s character also provides the moral underpinning of the film. “You and me,” she tells Jeff in one scene, “plunged into despair because we find a man didn’t kill his wife. We’re two of the most frightening ghouls I’ve ever known.”

I love Grace Kelly and Ingrid Bergman as Hitchcock heroines, and have always felt that after them, Hitchcock’s heroines became more tawdry and were treated more badly. Think of Tippi Hedren in Birds and Marnie, or Kim Novak in Vertigo.

Shalini: I agree. There’s something unhealthy about them, as if Hitch indulged his dark side more and more.
Me: Vertigo, in my opinion, really reflected Hitch’s obsession with control and sexual aggression.

Thelma Ritter acts the part of Stella, the home nurse sent out by the insurance company. She gets some of the best lines in the film and acts as a reminder that we are all voyeurs. “What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change,” she tells an unrepentant Jeff.

Raymond Burr also had a hard part to play; he had to essay his character without any dialogue. [We both agreed he’s evil when he kills the little dog. Shalini had a sneaking sympathy for Burr, which vanished when he began bundling Jimmy over the windowsill. And even though we both knew how the film would end, the suspense was killing us.]

Rear Window was that rare Hitchcock film where the women had so much to do. Once they buy into Jeff’s theory, they throw themselves wholeheartedly into working out how Thorwald could have committed the murder. It’s Lisa who takes the risks, and Stella who helps her.

What's also interesting is that each of the neighbours' narrative arcs gets closure. They are merely vignettes and not central to the main plot, so it wouldn't have mattered, perhaps, but it is a sign of a great script when those minor plot points are neatly tied up.  

Final verdict? As Shalini says, Rear Window is both a cosy, domestic drama as well as a nail-biting suspense thriller. It’s masterfully directed and beautifully acted, and if you're ever in the mood for a great suspense, do watch.