This is one of the most parodied films in cinema history.
It’s also one of the best. It’s certainly in the top handful of Alfred Hitchcock’s finest, and his finest are among the finest of all time.
Perhaps the most important detail in this film is the fact that everything is shot from the view of James Stewart’s character. All the shots of outside the apartment are from the angle of his eponymous rear window. By filming it this way, Hitchcock made us inhabit the world of L. B. Jeffries. We saw it all through his eyes. They had originally planned to show the newspaper editor in his office at the start of the movie calling Jeffries, but it was decided against it as it would have meant building a whole extra set just for one scene.
This films was based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich aka William Irish - I can never remember which is the pseudonym and which is the real name, and some sources differ as to which is which . . . in any case, the short story is called “It Must Have Been Murder” and is basically only about the characters played by James Stewart and Raymond Burr. I haven’t read it so I don’t know if they have the same names as they do here (Jeffries and Thorwald).
All the other characters were created to expand the story to feature length. And it worked spectacularly. Grace Kelly - possibly the most beautiful woman ever to have walked the face of the earth - is pitch perfect as Lisa, a character who starts off as dismissive but gets drawn into it by her own curiosity, and ultimately becomes even more convinced than Jeffries, based on the jewellery. Thelma Ritter as Stella the nurse is hugely entertaining, and if this film had been made in the 80s, that part could have been tailor-made for Rhea Perlman - Carla from Cheers. Actually Ted Danson and Shelley Long could have done a good job as Jeffries and Lisa come to think of it, and add in Kelsey Grammer to play Lt Doyle, Wendell Corey’s character and you’ve got a full house! As for who from Cheers could play Thorwald, maybe Keene Curtis (John Alan Hill, the grumpy owner of the restaurant upstairs in the later seasons). But I digress . . . Wendell Corey as Lt Doyle keeps it believable. His character has to walk a fine line, and provide the scepticism about Jeffries’ theories without being nasty. And he isn’t, he’s just doing his job. You get the feeling he’s only putting up with half of it because they’re old friends. Raymond Burr as Thorwald also has a tough part to play, as most of his acting is done long-distance, apart from the climax at the end.
Speaking of the climax to this movie, this is where Hitchcock’s genius really shone through. At the very start the movie, we see that Jeffries’ leg is broken. At first, that broken leg is just a plot device, giving him a reason to be sat in his apartment staring out of the window. But at the end, that broken leg becomes so much more significant in keeping him where he is against his will . . .
This whole film is full of great moments. The scream and the sound of broken glass that tell us that someone has just been killed. We know instinctively. Hitchcock had done something similar at the start of his first colour film “Rope”. He was great at conveying things quickly. Grace Kelly’s marital infidelity at the start of her first film with him, Dial M For Murder, is another good example of that. Then the scene with the dead dog, which reignites Jeffries’ convictions that Thorwald has been up to no good. The scene where Lisa breaks into Thorwald’s apartment is good too - she does it entirely off her own bat, and Jeffries is having kittens over her safety. The shot of her waggling the wedding ring for his benefit is beautifully done, and Thorwald seeing it too, he knows something is terribly amiss. And of course that silent phone call that sets up the climax - we know what’s coming, and so does Jeffries, and he’s powerless to escape it . . .
I can’t say enough in praise of this film. It’s one of the finest examples of Hitchcock’s genius there is. If you like Hitchcock, you’ll love this.