Movies: "Rear Window"

I'm not the world's biggest Alfred Hitchcock fan, but the man made some very good stuff in his career (actually, one of the shows I most remember from my childhood was Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which I loved seeing on Nick at Nite back in the day). My favorite Hitchcock movies include "Lifeboat," "Vertigo," and, of course, "Rear Window."

The gimmick in "Rear Window" is that the action never leaves the enormous apartment plaza set. Photographer L.B. Jeffries, confined to his apartment with a broken leg, spends hours just watching the people across the way. One day, he sees a murder. Or does he?

The perennial everyman Jimmy Stewart and the gorgeous Grace Kelly have a bit more chemistry than some of Hitch's other couples, and the film knows when to use humor to lighten what could have been a very dark commentary about American life. In the end, Hitchcock gives us a voyeuristic movie with a strangely optimistic tone.

9/10

Side note: Back when Universal Studios Orlando still had its "Alfred Hitchcock" themed show, they had a real neat post-show area with all sorts of exhibitions. The coolest one there was a large model duplicating the "Rear Window" set, complete with screens inside mimicking the action in the films. You used bincoulars to try to figure out which apartment contained a murder.