Rear Window
A wheelchair bound photographer spies on his neighbours from his apartment window and becomes convinced one of them has committed murder.
- Director: Alfred Hitchcock
- Genre:Mystery / Thriller
- Runtime:114 minutes
Cast
James Stewart : L. B. ‘Jeff’ Jefferies
Grace Kelly : Lisa Carol Fremont
Wendell Corey : Det. Lt. Thomas J. Doyle
Thelma Ritter : Stella
Raymond Burr : Lars Thorwald
After breaking his leg in one of his dangerous photography assignments, Jeff is confined to a wheelchair in his Greenwich Village apartment, whose rear window looks out onto a small courtyard and several other apartments. During a summer heat wave, he passes the time by watching his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool. The tenants he can see include a dancer, a lonely woman, a songwriter (Bagdasarian), several married couples, and Thorwald, a salesman with a bedridden wife.
After Thorwald makes repeated late-night trips carrying a large case, Jeff notices that Thorwald’s wife is gone and sees Thorwald cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Later, Thorwald ties a large packing crate with heavy rope and has moving men haul it away. After discussing these observations, Jeff, Stella and Lisa conclude that Thorwald murdered his wife.
Jeff asks Doyle to look into the situation, but Doyle finds nothing suspicious. Soon a neighbor’s dog is found dead with its neck broken. When a woman sees the dog and screams, the neighbors all rush to their windows to see what has happened, except for Thorwald, whose cigar can be seen glowing as he sits in his dark apartment.
Convinced that Thorwald is guilty after all, Jeff has Lisa slip an accusatory note under Thorwald’s door so Jeff can watch his reaction when he reads it. Then, as a pretext to get Thorwald away from his apartment, Jeff telephones him and arranges a meeting at a bar. He thinks Thorwald may have buried something in the courtyard flower patch and then killed the dog to keep it from digging it up. When Thorwald leaves, Lisa and Stella dig up the flowers but find nothing. Read more
