Looking Through the Rear Window

Rating: 8/10 (15 February 2005)

"Rear Window" is an excellent thriller by the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. All throughout the film, the audience becomes a willing accomplice to a peeping tom. The audience watches the main character's neighbors right alongside the main character.
L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) is confined to a wheelchair due to a bad accident in which Jeffries nearly lost his life. It was a car accident, occurring as Jeffries tries to get a picture of a car racing, but the race car ends up coming apart just as Jeffries takes his picture.
Needless to say, Jeffries gets injured and his camera gets broken. He has broken his leg, preventing him from being able to get out of his apartment. These days, when that happens, someone might take to spending their time watching television. However, this film takes place in the 50's, when television was just coming into it's own. As a matter of fact, at the time, advertising companies generally were not agreeing with their clients as to whether or not to advertise on television. The advertising companies thought television was doomed.
Hence we have the reason why Jeffries ends up spending his time watching the neighbors. He has nothing else to do. He makes up his own name for each of them. There is a woman he calls Miss Torso, who dances all the time. There is Miss Lonelyhearts , who cries herself to sleep every night. Then there is the traveling salesman, who Jeffries becomes very concerned about.
Turns out the salesman's wife is bed-ridden. Then why is no one paying attention to her? Why is it the salesman is wrapping such bizarre things as knives, and in newspaper?
The film is centered around this mystery, and the audience becomes a peeping tom themselves as they try to unravel the mystery alongside Jeffries.
What I am trying to point out here is that the film is entertaining, but, like all Hitchcock films, it requires a different sort of attention span than a modern day film does. Sure, the film is about the same length as modern films usually are, but modern films have to have something exciting happen often, something usually in which the main character's life is threatened. Take for example "I Robot." The character played by Will Smith cannot go more than twenty minutes before he has problems with the androids in that movie.
Unlike "I Robot" "Rear Window" has the ability to just focus on the mystery and the development of the characters it has. This is not to say that the film is not interesting. Trying to unravel the mystery to "Rear Window" is fun, even though it means becoming a neighborhood watchdog like Jeffries.
Also, considering the year the film was made, the portrayal of the woman in the film is somewhat sympathetic, like in other Hitchcock classics including "The Man Who Knew too Much." Films from around the time, such as"The Three Faces of Eve" have a tendency to look at all semi- strong woman as either loony or dangerous. "Rear Window," however, has a very sympathetic strong female character in the form of Lisa (Grace Kelly). She goes with the nurse to dig up the plot of ground Jeffries believes the wife is buried in. She is the one who goes and gives Mr. Thorwald (Raymond Burr, known to television audiences as Perry Mason) a threatening note and even breaks into Thorwald's apartment, an event that becomes pivotal to the story in a way I will not mention, through a second story window while wearing high- heels.
In other words, the women of the story make up for Mr. Jeffries' weakness.
These are all reasons why "Rear Window" has stood the test of time. Although there are also other reasons, the film is fun to watch if you don't have to have something exciting happen every few minutes in order for the film to keep your attention. The mystery to the film makes watching "Rear Window" a lot of fun.