Thursday, December 31, 2009

#120 Rear Window (1954)



**

Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr

Considered one of Hitchcock's greatest, I found it to be a crawling bore--saved only by the elegant and lucious Grace Kelly. The premise of the movie is, of course, truly classic-- the man with the broken leg watches the neighbors from the back window and thinks he's witnessed a murder. The apartment building functions like a micro-city, and the romances and devastations of all the individuals is actually truly fascinating. But once he focuses in on the supposed murder, it becomes over an hour of watching Stewart stare at nothing, get oiled and massaged by an old woman, argue with another stiff male actor, and whine at Grace Kelly. Other than a few suspenseful moments (like when Grace Kelly sneaks into the neighbor's window to investigate)... there isn't really much to keep you entertained.

It gets two stars for it being a good story as well being shot so beautifully (as Hitchcock is known to do so well).

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