Day 44: Rear Window (1954)

Movie #21 – Rear Window (1954) - 112 min, cert PG.

A journalist is consigned to a wheelchair with a broken leg and passes his time by spying on his neighbours through his back window. He starts to obsess about one couple in particular, and when the wife disappears after they have a row, he becomes convinced that a crime has been committed.

This is a good film that deserves its place on the list. Hitchcock drives the suspense with a master’s touch, and James Stewart acts the lead in a brilliantly understated way. The entire film takes place within a single scene, that of Stewart’s living room apartment, and the courtyard below it. Because Hitchcock only ever shows us that courtyard from a single angle, that of Stewart’s point of view, we see everything through his eyes, and we share his sense of voyeurism. We feel the same mixture of excitement and guilt about prying into other people’s personal lives. And when, finally, someone looks back, we feel the same fear of having been discovered.

Score – 8/10. Not quite enough to make my top ten, but pretty close.

Next up is Raiders of the Lost Ark, a classic that I remember with fondness from my younger days.