Rear Window (1954) *****

Alfred Hitchcock was used to doing films on small set pieces. Rope was a series of continuous takes shot in one apartment. Dial M For Murder was more of the same, also being shot in on apartment set. With Rear Window you can almost call it the biggest small set movie ever made- most of the film takes place in L.B. Jeffrie's (Jimmy Stewart) apartment but it looks out onto a magnificent New York apartment courtyard set.

The story follows a wheelchair confined Stewart going crazy in his small New York apartment in the middle of a heat wave. Now this was before DVD players and Ipods, so all poor Jeff has to do is stare out the window and watch his neighbors as they exist in the courtyard. It's while he's passing the time that he thinks he says a neighbor (Raymond Burr) across the way murder his wife.It becomes an obsession with Jeff and his uptown girlfriend (the beautiful Grace Kelly) to prove that the wife was killed before he skips town.

Such a simple premise, yet Hitchcock weaves a film that has more layers then you go in expecting. Take the relationship between Jeff and Lisa (Kelly). Lisa is practically throwing herself at him, trying to get him to settle down and he seems totally against the idea, even to the point of making comments leading the viewer to believe that she's too perfect. But as the film rolls along and she starts getting more adventurous in the endeavor he looks at her with an admiration that was lacking earlier in the film. There's more personality in this film than is on the surface.

For more personality just look at the courtyard and the other neighbors that aren't butchering their spouses. They all have a different personality and no two are alike. The musician, the spinster, the easy girl, the newlyweds, etc, etc, etc.

Hitchcock's real triumph is the way he makes you feel like you're a peeping tom. The way he cuts from what Stewart is looking at to Stewart's reaction makes you feel what he's feeling, be it shame, humor, or disgust. And when the killer's staring at you down the lens you get a start, even though you're just a casual visitor in Hitchcock's New York world.

Rear Window is a masterpiece from the master. It is a film that is re-watchable and like most great films, doesn't age to terribly. Rear Window is one of the best.