Suspense all from the vantage point of a window

Rating: 8/10 (4 December 2017)

Hitchcock's nod to voyeurism has a very simple premise: a photographer (Jimmy Stewart) is laid up with a broken leg, and finds entertainment in looking out his second floor window at his neighbors. The plot device is that during a heat wave, these neighbors leave their curtains drawn or shades up at all times, well, with the exception of a pair of newlyweds, whose implied activity (and its frequency) is a little joke Hitch gives us early on. He also dials up some eye candy circa 1954 with a dancer who regularly prances about her apartment. Stewart (slash Hitchcock) is a bit of perv, and he's kidded about that by his tough little nurse (Thelma Ritter) and glamorous girlfriend (Grace Kelly). Things get serious when he notices one of the neighbors (Raymond Burr) leaving his apartment multiple times in the wee hours of the night, and that the guy's wife has mysteriously disappeared.
From then on, there is a tension to the film, as we're not sure what's going on, or if anything at all is going on, as Stewart's detective friend (Wendell Corey) is skeptical and provides some alternate explanations. You might say, c'mon, we're pretty sure something's going on, this is a Hitchcock film after all, but consider the uncomfortable light Stewart's character is placed in: spying on neighbors with binoculars and a gigantic zoom lens, suggesting that his friend break the law by searching the guy's apartment without a warrant, and even (gasp) having Kelly over for a little sleepover, despite only having a single bed. It would have been interesting had Stewart's character been darker, e.g. taking pictures of his neighbors, but that may be implied when he breaks out slides showing pictures of a flower garden in the courtyard to try to understand if anything has changed.
Tension ratchets up considerably when Ritter and Kelly investigate on their own, but I won't spoil it. The fact that the action for the entire movies takes place in Stewart's apartment or from its vantage point is a pretty phenomenal achievement. Stewart turns in a strong performance, and Ritter's blunt speculations are effective in spurring our imaginations. I loved the scene which ends with Burr's cigarette glowing in the dark, one of the best moments in the film. The little stories playing out in the various apartments, including a woman who is lonely and depressed, provide interesting subplots. Overall the film is a little too constrained for me to consider it Hitchcock's best, and I could have used a little more darkness in the characters or the plot, but it's certainly very good, and a brilliant example of suspense not requiring fast-paced action or gore.