32 - "Rear Window" (1954)

     I think people by now realize that older movies are not my cup of tea on a grand scale. There weren't many films prior to 1970 on my list. But 4 of the them have made my top 32 so the ones I love, I love. One directors work that stands for me is Alfred Hitchcock's. I love me some Hitchcock suspense. If my list was the top 200, films such as The Birds, North By Northwest, Vertigo and Notorious would be on it. But there are two that really stand out for me. One will be coming later (it's probably not a surprise which one at this point), but now we have Rear Window. The premise of the story is simple. Jimmy Stewart is L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, a photojournalist who is confined to his apartment due to a broken leg suffered at an event he attended. He gets regular visits from a nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend (the beautiful Grace Kelly), who come to help him out and provide company. Jeff spends his day spying on his neighbors with his camera. Almost all of them leave their windows open due to the heat. As the hours pass, Jeff assigns each of the people nicknames based on their actions and tries to figure out what is going on with their lives. Then something peculiar happens in one of the apartments. He sees a man who has a bed-ridden wife that constantly nags him. When the shades are drawn, everything seems to come to a stop and the next day their appears to be no sign of the wife. Had Jeff witnessed a murder? This will become the primary mystery of the story. Jeff recruits his two lady friends to help him investigate and the three of them get in over their heads as the classic Hitchcock suspense kicks in. Rear Window is a masterpiece of the slow-build tension. We see everything from Jeff's point-of-view throughout the picture, and when it gets to a point that he is in trouble...we can't help but feel caught as well.