The Times (11/Aug/1954) - Mr Hitchcock's new film: Rear Window
(c) The Times (11/Aug/1954)
- keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Grace Kelly, James Stewart, New York City, New York, Raymond Burr, Rear Window (1954), Rope (1948), Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey
MR. HITCHCOCK'S NEW FILM: "REAR WINDOW"
Nothing in the game of word associations could be easier than the finding of the appropriate response to the name "Hitchcock." The experienced film-goer's triumphant cry of "suspense" rings out instantaneously, and suspense, for the moment, let it be. But a particular kind of suspense, surely, a suspense depending upon a style in direction which alternates between the loving, unwinking persistence with which the camera — as in Rope — follows the characters and the action without shifting from the spot and a quick, ingenious juggling with the ingredients and appearance of the plot which catches the audience off its guard, confounds it, and is known as the Hitchcock trick. The former characteristic governs Rear Window, the new film he has directed and which is to be seen at the Plaza Cinema; the trick is manifest only in ingenuities of technique.
Mr. Hitchcock, with a scrupulous care for the unities which would interest Henry James and Percy Lubbock, keeps Jeffries (Mr. James Stewart), a Press photographer who has broken his leg, anchored to a wheel chair in one room — everything that goes on is seen through his eyes and his field-glasses. His window looks out on to a number of flats built round a courtyard and, since a New York heat wave is on, the windows are open, the curtains are undrawn, and the neighbours are generous with the glimpses they give him of their lives and habits, the spectator, as it were, pays a penny for a peep-show. Jeffries, an amiable though inquisitive character, becomes particularly interested in Thorwald (Mr. Raymond Burr), a commercial traveller with a wife, who is an invalid and who nags. One day the wife is no more to be seen, and Jeffries's field-glasses disclose Thorwald engaged in some ominous work with saws, knives, and travelling trunks. He instantly suspects murder; his detective friend (Mr. Wendell Corey) pours professional cold water on his amateurish enthusiasm and Mr. Hitchcock is left with the problem of keeping his difficult game in play for nearly two hours. He plays fair — not an extra knave, let alone an ace, up his sleeve — and he plays skilfully, but he must be glad of the presence of some bright, amusing dialogue and of the help of the playing of Mr. Stewart, in the major role, and of Miss Thelma Ritter and Miss Grace Kelly in minor ones. Miss Ritter, as a masseuse, combines homespun philosophy with dry wit, while Miss Kelly, as a rich girl in shameless love with Jeffries, lends to sophistication an attractive warmth and humour.
