Description: One of Alfred Hitchcock’s most suspenseful screen achievements, Rear Window, is now available in a new 2-disc Special Edition DVD! When a professional photographer (James Stewart) suspects his neighbor of murdering his nagging wife, he enlists his socialite girlfriend (Grace Kelly) to help investigate the suspicious chain of events.
Honored in AFI's 100 Years ... 100 Movies for excellence in film, Rear Window has also been hailed as “one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most stylish thrillers” (Leonard Maltin’s Classic Movie Guide). With in-depth bonus features and a digitally remastered picture, this set showcases a cinematic masterpiece that continues to entertain audiences around the world.
Amazon.com essential video: Like the Greenwich Village courtyard view from its titular portal, Alfred Hitchcock's classic Rear Window is both confined and multileveled: both its story and visual perspective are dictated by its protagonist's imprisonment in his apartment, convalescing in a wheelchair, from which both he and the audience observe the lives of his neighbors. Cheerful voyeurism, as well as the behavior glimpsed among the various tenants, affords a droll comic atmosphere that gradually darkens when he sees clues to what may be a murder.
Photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries (James Stewart) is, in fact, a voyeur by trade, a professional photographer sidelined by an accident while on assignment. His immersion in the human drama (and comedy) visible from his window is a by-product of boredom, underlined by the disapproval of his girlfriend, Lisa (Grace Kelly), and a wisecracking visiting nurse (Thelma Ritter). Yet when the invalid wife of Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr) disappears, Jeff enlists the two women to help him to determine whether she's really left town, as Thorwald insists, or been murdered.
Hitchcock scholar Donald Spoto convincingly argues that the crime at the center of this mystery is the MacGuffin--a mere pretext--in a film that's more interested in the implications of Jeff's sentinel perspective. We actually learn more about the lives of the other neighbors (given generic names by Jeff, even as he's drawn into their lives) he, and we, watch undetected than we do the putative murderer and his victim. Jeff's evident fear of intimacy and commitment with the elegant, adoring Lisa provides the other vital thread to the script, one woven not only into the couple's own relationship, but reflected and even commented upon through the various neighbors' lives.
At minimum, Hitchcock's skill at making us accomplices to Jeff's spying, coupled with an ingenious escalation of suspense as the teasingly vague evidence coalesces into ominous proof, deliver a superb thriller spiked with droll humor, right up to its nail-biting, nightmarish climax. At deeper levels, however, Rear Window plumbs issues of moral responsibility and emotional honesty, while offering further proof (were any needed) of the director's brilliance as a visual storyteller. --Sam Sutherland
possibly hitchcock at his best this is my favorite hitchcock movie. the premise is so great--look out your nyc window and spy on your neighbors for entertainment, while accidentally spotting a murderer. jimmy stewart and grace kelly at their best. you can't go wrong with this one!
Such a great movie. A classic This is one of the best movies of it's era, or any other. I true gem, and really entertaining. Some movies from the 50's are dated and hard to watch, but not this one. highly recommended.
5 stars - with a caveat! I teach this work as the pinnacle of Hitchcock's oeuvre in a film class, and I can literally watch it back-to-back, once every 10 weeks, and not get tired of it. It is so fantastically done on all fronts that it holds up beyond nearly all other popular films in the history of cinema.
This is a well-done DVD with a truly fascinating doc on the second disk that gives all kinds of great inside information about not only the work itself, but Hitchcock's methods. My caveat is for the DVD transfer. One of my students worked for years at a restoration facility and when I showed him this DVD, he made disgusted noises at the cheap quality of the digital transfer. Apparently this is the way it's done nowadays because studios are too cheap to go in by hand and restore 35mm, so the pixillation is noticeable during dolly and panning shots, as are the fluctuations in color. However, this isn't exactly a posh Blu-Ray, and I suppose we should be thankful the Hitchcock 5 exist in the public domain at all, so 5 stars it is. :)
One Of Hitch's All-Time Great Films It took me several viewings over many years before I really appreciated this film. Now I absolutely love it. Next to Psycho, it's now my favorite Alfred Hitchcock film. Having it on a pretty-clear DVD transfer didn't hurt, either. Eventually, I'd like to see a sharp Blu-Ray version of this movie.
"Rear Window" still dated quite a bit with the dialogue, but the focus of the story, namely Jimmy Stewart's voyeurism and suspicions of what is going on in Raymond Burr's apartment, never gets old. It is a storyline which entertains and builds tremendous suspense. Stewart provides the fun and Grace Kelly is there for looks. The people Stewart observe are really interesting.
Speaking of dated, can you imagine all the people in the crowded apartments keeping their blinds open all the time? Maybe it was just a more trusting world back in the 1950s!
a gift is a gift I bought this as a gift for a friend that has Rear Window as one of their favorite movies of all time to watch
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