Guests:
VP Morris, an award-winning thriller and horror writer and podcaster;
vpmorris.com, @teawriterepeat on IG and X, The Dead Letters Podcast;
previously on Scream and The Shining.
Cast:
Alfred Hitchcock, Director
John Michael Hayes, Writer
Franz Waxman, Music
James Stewart as L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies
Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont
Wendell Corey as NYPD Det. Lt. Thomas "Tom" J. Doyle
Thelma Ritter as Stella
Raymond Burr as Lars Thorwald
Judith Evelyn as Miss Lonelyhearts
Ross Bagdasarian as the songwriter
Georgine Darcy as Miss Torso
Sara Berner and Frank Cady as the couple living above the Thorwalds
*Recognition:
Rear Window was released on August 4, 1954.
It garnered widespread critical acclaim even ranking fifth on Cahiers du Cinéma's Top 10 Films of the Year List in 1955.
On a budget of roughly $1 million, the film would gross $37 million over its total box office run and earning the #4 spot in the 1954 box office.
Rear Window would receive 4 Oscar nominations: Best Director (Hitchcock), Adapted Screenplay (Hayes), Cinematography - Color, and Sound-Recording.
In 1998, Time Out magazine conducted a poll and Rear Window was voted the 21st greatest film of all time. In 2022, Time Out magazine ranked the film at No. 26 on their list of "The 100 best thriller films of all time".
In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made, Rear Window was ranked 53rd among critics and 48th among directors. In the 2022 edition of the magazine's Greatest films of all time list the film ranked 38th in the critics poll.
In 2017, Empire magazine's readers' poll ranked Rear Window at No. 72 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies.
Rear Window has been recognized by the AFI on the following lists:
At number 42 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies
At number 14 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills,
At number 48 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition)
At number 3 in AFI's 10 Top 10 (Mysteries)
Rear Window currently holds a 98% among critics on RT, a 100 score on Metacritic, and a 4.4/5 on Letterboxd.
Plot Summary: In Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window," we find ourselves confined within the claustrophobic confines of a Greenwich Village apartment, peering through the lens of LB Jefferies (James Stewart), a wheelchair-bound photographer. His summer pastime is a voyeuristic venture into the lives of his neighbors, a cross-section of urban archetypes played out in the building's courtyard. Each window frames a fragment of humanity, from the lonely Miss Lonelyhearts to the tantalizing Miss Torso.
The plot pivots on Jeff's suspicion that a neighbor, Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), has murdered his wife. This suspicion, shared and fueled by his glamorous girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) and his nurse Stella (Thelma Ritter), drives the narrative forward. Hitchcock masterfully crafts tension not through action, but through the act of watching—turning the audience into voyeurs complicit in Jeff's obsessions.
"Rear Window" is not merely a suspense thriller; it is a meditation on isolation and the ethics of observation. Stewart's performance, marked by vulnerability and determination, anchors the film's exploration of human curiosity and its consequences. Grace Kelly, in her role, adds a layer of sophistication and intrigue, embodying the tension between adventure and domesticity. "Rear Window" remains a timeless classic, a window not just into the lives of its characters, but into the genius of Hitchcock's cinematic vision.
Did You Know:
This movie was shot on one specially constructed set that took fifty men two months to build, and cost somewhere between $75,000 and $100,000. That would be equivalent of from $840,000 to $1,120,000 in 2022. In order to get the scale right, the soundstage floor had to be removed so the courtyard could be built in a former storage space in the basement. Therefore, Jeff's apartment, which appears to be on the second floor, was actually at street level. The apartment-courtyard set measured ninety-eight feet wide, one hundred eighty-five feet long, and forty feet high, and consisted of thirty-one apartments, twelve of which were completely furnished. The courtyard was set twenty to thirty feet below stage level, and some of the buildings were the equivalent of five or six stories high. Live birds and cats were allowed to wander about the courtyard for added realism. The whole thing became a marvel that visitors to the studio were eager to see, and it was featured in magazine spreads while shooting was still in progress.
One thousand arc lights were used to simulate sunlight. Thanks to extensive pre-lighting of the set, the crew could make the changeover from day to night in under forty-five minutes. The set had to have four lighting set-ups always in place for various times of the day. Remote switches located in Jeff's apartment controlled the lighting. Virtually every piece of lighting that wasn't employed on another Paramount Pictures movie had to be used (by some counts, one thousand huge arc lights and two thousand smaller ones). At one point, the lights caused the sprinkler system to go off, which shut everything down, and plunged the set into total darkness. Sir Alfred Hitchcock calmly told an assistant to bring him an umbrella and let him know when the "rain" stopped.
While shooting, Alfred Hitchcock worked only in Jeff's "apartment". The actors and actresses in other apartments wore flesh-colored earpieces so that he could radio his directions to them.
According to Georgine Darcy, the man and woman on the fire escape struggling to get out of the rain was based on a prank by Sir Alfred Hitchcock. Each actor and actress in the apartment complex facing Jeff's rear window wore an earpiece through which they could receive Hitchcock's directions. Hitchcock told the man to pull the mattress in one direction and told the woman to pull in the opposite direction. Unaware that they had received conflicting directions, the couple began to fight and struggle to get the mattress inside once the crew began filming. The resulting mayhem, in which one of the couple is tossed inside the window with the mattress, provided humor and a sense of authenticity, which Hitchcock liked. He was so pleased with the result that he did not order another take.
Sir Alfred Hitchcock gave Georgine Darcy free range to choreograph her own dance moves for her character, Miss Torso. Darcy was to dance on her own volition during filming. Hitchcock's only restriction was that he forbade her to take professional dance lessons, as he wanted her to maintain the imprecision of an amateur dancer.
All of the sound in this movie is diegetic, meaning that all the music, speech, and other sounds all come from within the world of the movie (with the exception of non-diegetic orchestral music heard in the first three shots of the movie).
All the apartments in Thorwald's building had electricity and running water, and could be lived in.
Sir Alfred Hitchcock supposedly hired Raymond Burr to play Lars Thorwald because he could be easily made to look like his old producer David O. Selznick, who Hitchcock felt interfered too much.
Grace Kelly was offered this film and "On the Waterfront" at the same time. She chose, "Rear Window" because she thought the role of "Lisa", who worked in the world of fashion, as she once did, suited her better.
According to Thelma Ritter, Alfred Hitchcock never told actors and actresses if he liked what they did in a scene, and if he didn't like it, "he looked like he was going to throw up."
Sir Alfred Hitchcock liked working with James Stewart, especially in comparison to his other most frequent star, Cary Grant, who was fussy and demanding. Stewart, in Hitchcock's eyes, was an easy-going, workmanlike performer. However, Wendell Corey, who appeared with Stewart in several movies, said the actor also had a "whopping big ego" and could intimidate even Hitchcock by out-shouting and out-arguing him if he thought a scene wasn't going well. "There was steel under all that mush," Corey said.
Ask Dana Anything:
VP Morris (guest)
If you had to move to another country, where would you go?
Who would you recast in the remake of Rear Window?
Best Performance: Alfred Hitchcock (Director)
Best Secondary Performance: Grace Kelly (Lisa)/James Stewart (LB)/Thelma Ritter (Stella)
Most Charismatic Award: Grace Kelly (Lisa)/Thelma Ritter (Stella)
Best Scene:
Stella and LB
First Night w/ Lisa
The Saw and the Knife
Consulting Doyle
Searching for the Wedding Ring
Thorwald Attacks
Favorite Scene: The Saw and the Knife/Thorwald's Luggage/Searching for the Wedding Ring
Most Indelible Moment: Thorwald Attacks/Searching for the Wedding Ring
In Memorium:
John Mayall, 90, British musician (often referred to as the "Godfather of British Blues", "Room to Move (song)", "The Turning Point (song)")
Jerry Miller, 81, American musician and guitarist (was in The Jerry Miller Band and Moby Grape)
Esta TerBlanche, 51, South African actress (All My Children)
Jack Cameron White, 70, American Drummer and Actor (Sons of Anarchy and Nashville (TV))
David Loughery, 71, American screenwriter (Dreamscape, Money Train, and Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)
Bob Newhart, 94, American comedian and actor (The Bob Newhart Show, Newhart, Elf), Emmy (2013) and Grammy (1961) winner.
Best Lines/Funniest Lines:
L.B. Jefferies: And what about the rest?
Stella: When those cops at the station see Lisa, they'll even contribute.
Stella: You heard of that market crash in '29? I predicted that.
L.B. Jefferies: Oh, just how did you do that, Stella?
Stella: Oh, simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said. Nerves, I said. And I asked myself, "What's General Motors got to be nervous about?" Overproduction, I says; collapse. When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country's ready to let go.
L.B. Jefferies: Of course, Stella; economics and kidney problems have no relation to the stock market.
Stella: It crashed didn't it?!
Stella: Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.
Lisa Fremont: I wish I could be creative.
L.B. Jefferies: Oh sweetie, you are. You have a great talent for creating difficult situations.
L.B. Jefferies: She's like a queen bee with her pick of the drones.
Lisa Fremont: I'd say she's doing a woman's hardest job: juggling wolves.
Lisa Fremont: I'm not much on rear window ethics.
L.B. Jefferies: Why would a man leave his apartment three times on a rainy night with a suitcase and come back three times?
Lisa Fremont: He likes the way his wife welcomes him home.
Lisa Fremont: She doesn't love him.
L.B. Jefferies: How can you tell that from here?
Lisa Fremont: You said it looks like my apartment. Doesn't it?
Stella: I can hear you now: "Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You're too good for me."
Stella: Maybe one day she'll find her happiness.
L.B. Jefferies: Yeah, some man'll lose his.
L.B. Jefferies: She sure is the "eat, drink and be merry" girl.
Stella: Yeah, she'll wind up fat, alcoholic and miserable.
Stella: We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes sir. How's that for a bit of homespun philosophy?
L.B. Jefferies: Reader's Digest, April 1939.
Stella: Well, I only quote from the best.
Gunnison: It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome and bitter old man.
L.B. Jefferies: Yeah, can't you just see me, rushing home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal and the nagging wife...
Gunnison: Jeff, wives don't nag anymore. They discuss.
Lisa: It doesn't make sense to me. Women aren't that unpredictable. A woman has a favorite handbag, and it always hangs on her bedpost where she can see it easily, and, all of sudden, she goes on a trip and leaves it behind? Why?
L.B. Jefferies: She's too perfect, she's too talented, she's too beautiful, she's too sophisticated, she's too everything but what I want.
Stella: Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?
Lisa Fremont: Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that?
L.B. Jefferies: He gets it from the landlady once a month.
Stella: I'm not shy. I've been looked at before.
Stella: No one's invented a polite word for killing yet.
Lisa Fremont: Tell me exactly what you saw and what you think it means.
Lisa Fremont: Jeff, if you're squeamish, just don't look.
The Stanley Rubric:
Legacy: 9.17
Impact/Significance: 8.33
Novelty: 8.83
Classic-ness: 9.67
Rewatchability: 9.5
Audience Score: 9.25 (90% Google, 95% RT)
Total: 54.75
Remaining Questions:
Who was the woman posing as Thorwald's wife?
Why dig up the saw and knife if you already killed the dog?
What do you think Thorwald's plan was in confronting Jeffries?
Why did Thorwald not just divorce his wife?
Listener Questions:
Heather Stewart (The Question Queen) (UK)
Is Lisa the actual hero of the story?
On a scale of 1-10, how annoying is it not to be able to scratch an itch?
Is this Hitchcock's best movie? If yes, why? If not, what is?
Myke Emal (Cinemusts Podcast)
Who’s your favorite of “Jeff’s” neighbors to spy on?
Who's your favorite Jeff to spy on? (Tom follow-up)
Comentarios