This review is part of the Summer Under the Stars Blogathon. Today's star is James Stewart.
"Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors". So sang Charlie Rich in Behind Closed Doors. While it might be true that no one knows what goes on behind closed doors, Charlie Rich never mentioned anything about open windows. Rear Window takes its simple premise and works it into a well-crafted suspenseful scenario.
Photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is one week away from having his leg cast removed. He is going stir-crazy in his Greenwich Village apartment, itching to go back to dangerous hot spots. He has been whiling away the time by looking outside his rear window into the various private lives of his neighbors. There is the luscious "Miss Torso" (Georgine Darcy), a dancer who is never short on company. Someone who is desperately short on company is "Miss Lonelyhearts" (Judith Evelyn). She is a middle-aged woman who has imaginary dinners with gentlemen callers and drinks to ease the loneliness. There is the sculptress "Miss Hearing Aid" (Jesslyn Fax), forever working on her avant-garde art. A Songwriter (Ross Bagdasarian) is forever working on a love theme. A newlywed couple is also there, though their shades are almost always closed. A relatively happy couple sleeps in the fire escape, with their dog being hoisted up and down on a pulley. There is an unhappily married couple whom we learn are Lars and Anna Thorwald (Raymond Burr and Irene Winston).
Jeff observes all of them with a mixture of amusement and indifference. He seems to struggle with observing his long-term girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly). Lisa, a fashion purchaser, is the most elegant, posh, beautiful woman around. She is perfect, which is exactly what troubles Jeff. He loves her but thinks that his rough life would clash with her upper-crust society world. Lisa is adamant that she can rough it if needed, a highly dubious assertion. Jeff's nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter) is equally adamant that Lisa is the perfect woman for Jeff. Stella is also adamant that Jeff's Peeping Tom routine is unhealthy.
Looking in on his neighbors does have an unexpected surprise for Jeff. He begins to suspect that Lars Thorwald has offed his nagging wife. Could Jeff have witnessed a murder? Jeff thinks so, but no one else does. Chief among his doubters is Jeff's wartime buddy and current New York Police Detective Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey). He doesn't see any evidence of murder. Jeff, however, will not be denied. Soon both Lisa and Stella begin to suspect that there is something wicked going on across the courtyard. The three soon start conducting their own investigation. Did Lars Thorwald really murder his wife? What fates await the other residents of the apartment block? Will Jeff survive the private eyes that now start watching him?
Rear Window is, to my mind, a surprisingly simple story. Yet the story soon starts working on the viewer. I am not fond of the idea that Rear Window is a meta-commentary on film viewing. I can see how people might think that. The story is about someone watching someone else, which is what all filmgoing is. However, this might be a case of reading too much into things. Yet, I digress.
Rear Window works well because over the course of the film, we get actually more information than the characters. A few times, we see Jeff asleep. We the audience see Thorwald leave the apartment more than Jeff does. Alfred Hitchcock has some wonderful sequences that give us detail and background without having to say anything at all. The opening shows us the various lives of the residents to where we understand who these people are. As we go around Jeff's apartment, we see his broken leg, then the dangerous photographs, down to the smashed camera and finally a glamorous magazine cover. John Michael Hayes' screenplay fills us in with information right from the start.
The adaptation of Cornell Woodrich's short story builds up its suspense gradually. To its credit, the film never suggests that Jeff is crazy or imagining things. Instead, it allows him and the other characters to build up their differing points of view on the various situations.
The film is filled with excellent performances. James Stewart makes Jeff into a frustrated man. He is frustrated at the temporary physical limitations he has. He is frustrated by people's initial resistance to his ideas about Thorwald. He is especially frustrated in his relationship with Lisa. Stewart's Jeff is at times sarcastic and thoughtless. We do see, however, his growing obsession about the potential murder. We also see Jeff's quiet realization that Lisa has more to her than elegant dinners. When she rushes back after her near-escape and recounts her adventures, Stewart gives Jeff a look of immense pride. It is as if Jeff sees iron within the velvet gloves. Again, without saying a word, Stewart tells us what Jeff is thinking and feeling. Rear Window is one of James Stewart's standout performances.
Grace Kelly's entrance sixteen minutes into the film is the stuff of film legend. Her slow approach to kiss Jeff is tinged with eroticism and elegance. Kelly seems tailor-made for the role of the elegant, affluent, patrician Lisa. The sophisticated wardrobe designed by Edith Head certainly help portray the rarefied world of Lisa Fremont. Kelly's generally soft, posh speaking manner also add to Lisa Fremont's elegance. However, we see that there is more than meets the eye with someone even as beautiful as Lisa Fremont. She loves Jeff and is frustrated at how dismissive he is of her survival skills. She, unlike Jeff, is able to see deeper.
As a photographer, Jeff is used to seeing things as they are. Lisa, however, sees things underneath. For example, Jeff notes that Mrs. Thorwald's ring is inside her purse. Lisa is the one that points out that women do not keep their jewelry in their purses. Moreover, women do not leave their favorite handbag behind if leaving on a long trip. Detective Doyle may sneer at "women's intuition". Lisa Fremont shows that it is less "intuition" than "logic" applied to women's behavior.
About the only real flaw in the Lisa/Jeff relationship is not their differing worldviews about their careers. It is in how the-then twenty-five-year-old Kelly looks mismatched against the then-forty-six-year-old Stewart. Younger actresses paired with actors old enough to be their fathers is nothing new. Here, Kelly plays the role well. Stewart plays the role well. Together, they do well. The overall look though is still a bit peculiar.
Ritter has an especially fine moment near the end. As Lisa, Jeff and Stella decide whether or not to dig up Thorwald's flowerbed where the murdered dog was found, Stella calls Lisa "Miss Freemoney". It is a blink-and-you-miss it moment that I understand is disputed to have actually happened. This might be a Mandela effect situation, and the subtitles have it as "Miss Fremont". However, I never heard anything other than "Freemoney", a sly pun on both Lisa's last name and her elegant, posh background.
Rear Window is a tightly constricted film. Alfred Hitchcock rarely ventures outside Jeff's apartment or his point of view. We do get brief close-ups of Miss Torso and Miss Lonelyhearts when the grief-stricken owner of the murdered dog berates her neighbors for the crime. Apart from that, Rear Window keeps to its slightly claustrophobic world.
The film does a good job in engaging the viewer with little snippets of the other tenants' lives. Even though we do not directly interact with figures like Miss Torso, the Songwriter or Miss Lonelyhearts, we get enough information to make us as voyeuristic as Jeff, Lisa and Stella. We even begin to sympathize with their situations. Rear Window does manage to give us remarkably happy endings for these small characters. We even get a nice bit of humor with both Jeff and Lisa.
Rear Window has a surprisingly jazzy, upbeat opening music from Franz Waxman. He even managed to integrate his own score to A Place in the Sun at a certain point. Waxman also wrote the music for the Songwriter's final product, appropriately enough called Lisa.
One of Jeff's great complaints is that Lisa Fremont is simply too perfect. I would not go so far as to say Rear Window is perfect. However, it is an exceptional film. Rear Window is worth looking into, or out of.
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