Tagline: Seeing isn’t always believing.
Rear Window movie storyline. After breaking his leg during a dangerous assignment, professional photographer L. B. “Jeff” Jeffries (Stewart) is confined to a wheelchair in his Greenwich Village apartment, whose rear window looks out onto a small courtyard and several other apartments. During a summer heat wave, he passes the time by watching his neighbors, who keep their windows open to stay cool. The tenants he can see include a dancer, a lonely woman, a songwriter, several married couples, and Lars Thorwald (Burr), a salesman with a bedridden wife.
After Thorwald makes repeated late-night trips carrying a large case, Jeff notices that Thorwald’s wife is gone and sees Thorwald cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Later, Thorwald ties a large packing crate with heavy rope and has moving men haul it away. Jeff discusses these observations with his wealthy girlfriend Lisa (Kelly) and his home-care nurse Stella (Ritter), then explains to his friend Tom Doyle (Corey), a local police detective, that they believe Thorwald murdered his wife. Doyle looks into the situation but finds nothing suspicious.
Soon after, a neighbor’s dog is found dead with its neck broken. When a woman sees the dog and screams, the neighbors all rush to their windows to see what has happened, except for Thorwald, whose cigar can be seen glowing as he sits in his dark apartment. Convinced that Thorwald is guilty after all, Jeff has Lisa slip an accusatory note under Thorwald’s door so Jeff can watch his reaction when he reads it. Then, as a pretext to get Thorwald away from his apartment, Jeff telephones him and arranges a meeting at a bar. He thinks Thorwald may have buried something in the courtyard flower patch and then killed the dog to keep it from digging it up. When Thorwald leaves, Lisa and Stella dig up the flowers but find nothing.
Rear Window (1954)
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr, Judith Evelyn, Ross Bagdasarian, Georgine Darcy, Sara Berner, Frank Cady, Jesslyn Fax, Irene Winston, Havis Davenport
Screenplay by: John Michael Hayes
Cinematography by: Robert Burks
Film Editing by: George Tomasini
Costume Design by: Edith Head
Set Decoration by: Sam Comer, Ray Moyer
Art Direction by: J. McMillan Johnson, Hal Pereira
Music by: Franz Waxman
Distributed by: Paramount Pictures
Release Date: September 1, 1954
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