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Rear Window (Universal Legacy Series)
starring: Bennie Bartlett, Sara Berner, Raymond Burr, Frank Cady, Iphigenie Castiglioni

List Price: $26.98

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Used Price: $15.50
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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Universal
EAN: 0025195018258
Format: Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Universal Studios
Region Code: 1
Release Date: October 07, 2008
Running Time: 115 minutes
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1954
Sales Rank: 1796
MPN: MCAD61102353D

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Editorial Review:

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

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Poor Casting for Kelly, Poor Writing for Hitch
I am a big fan of both Grace Kelly and Alfred Hitchcock, but I really think this film is ridiculous. We are made to believe that somehow this photographer (Stewart) is holed up in his shoddy back-alley apartment due to an injury, but his gorgeous socialite girlfriend (Kelly) is not at all averse to hanging out there constantly. She looks as out of place as a Tiffany lamp in a public restroom. There is also a ridiculous attempt at sexualizing Kelly, involving her showing Stewart a piece of not-so-revealing lingerie (not even wearing, just showing) as "a taste of things to come." Grace Kelly is just not right here, mainly because she seems simultaneously less uptight and more classy than her character.

I wish I could critique the writing, but since this is a suspense film it would ... Read More

Rating:

- a completely original suspense masterpiece!
One of the most original films ever made! A man in a wheelchair, with a leg in a cast is trapped in his Greenwich Village one room apartment, watching his neighbours through the window onto a courtyard, during a heat wave in the summer. Sometimes what you see, you don't believe and what you believe you don't see and that can be murder. The set-up and premise of the film is outstanding and completely original. With excellent dialogue and excellently mounted scenes without dialogue, Hitchcock enters the dangerous world of the peeping tom and gives it his masterful twist.

Rating:

- No Dream Sequence PLEASE
The Dream Sequence referred to in the last review was never part of the original film. It was inserted by local television stations in a lame attempt to recapitulate the plot for those who had tuned in late. Exactly the kind of butchering that should be prevented by copywright laws. The current restoration is completely faithful to the original film.

Rating:

- Restorers' Error
Restorers' Error

What the restorers of Rear Window don't know is that there exist two dream sequences in the first part of the movie.

The first takes place after Grace Kelly leaves, and James Stewart has heard the scream from across the courtyard. Thelma Ritter, Grace Kelly, and the courtyard are shown while dialogue from Thelma Ritter's argument with Stewart about Lisa, and Lisa's argument with Stewart, are heard with an echo. The composer's new song is heard.

The second takes place after Stewart has waked up and noticed the salesman taking a suitcase out during the rain, coming back, and taking the suitcase out again. The composer's song is heard over the image which shows the salesman arguing with his wife, the artist neighbor telling the salesman he is ... Read More

Rating:

- "We've become a race of Peeping Toms"
Every film is an artifact of its era and "Rear Window" is no different so those expecting slam bang action like they see in "The Matrix" should look elsewhere. All of that said, "Rear Window" still stands tall as a film classic because of the themes, artistry of Hitchcock, the performances and the witty dialogue that we hear in the film. Unseen except for rare TV performances in the early 60's and rare revival house showings, "Rear Window" looks extremely good in its DVD presentation although clearly no complete restoration was done here like was done for "Vertigo" (but "Rear Window" wasn't in as bad a shape as "Vertigo" either). This edition looks better than the previous DVD (although it should be noted it's the same transfer as what was in the Hitchcock boxed set release four years ago)with a ... Read More

DVD : Rear Window (Universal Legacy Series)