Daily Archives: November 17, 2015

Rear Window (1954)

Posted on November 17, 2015 | 7 comments

Rear Window
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Written by John Michael Hayes based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich
1954/USA
Paramount Pictures/Patron, Inc.
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental
#274 of 100 Movies You Must See Before You Die

[box] Lisa: I’m not much on rear window ethics.[/box]

It seems this movie is endlessly re-watchable.  It is one of my very favorite Hitchcock films.

Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart) is in a hip-high cast and wheelchair, having broken a leg while photographing a car race.  To fill the hours, he gazes into the apartments across the way from his and makes up little stories about the inhabitants in his head.  The monotony is occasionally broken by visits from insurance nurse (what happened to those?) Stella (Thelma Ritter) and girlfriend Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly).

Lisa is angling hard for a marriage proposal but Jeff is able to resist her considerable charms.  He believes the fashion model could not share the life of an active photo-journalist who is sent to hot spots all over the world.  The lives of the married couples across from him are also discouraging.

Over time, Jeff begins to suspect that a salesman (Raymond Burr) has murdered his invalid wife.  He pieces together a mountain of circumstantial evidence but has no actual proof. His detective buddy Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey) thinks he is making things up.  But, to his surprise, Lisa proves to be a brave and enthusiastic investigator.

How anyone could possibly resist Grace Kelly is beyond me.  This is surely her sexiest performance and Hitchcock caressingly photographs every ounce of her appeal.  But Stewart’s cold feet are key to the movie, which is as much about commitment phobia as anything else.  We also have the very ingenious sets to enjoy and some questions about voyeurism, Stewart’s and our own, to ask ourselves.  This time I actually almost felt sorry for Raymond Burr.  Anyway, I cannot think of a single thing I would change about this movie.  Very highly recommended.

Rear Window was nominated for Academy Awards in the following categories:  Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Color; and Best Sound, Recording.

Re-Release Trailer

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Posted in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, 1954

Sabrina (1954)

Posted on November 17, 2015 | 4 comments

Sabrina
Directed by Billy Wilder
Written by Billy Wilder, Samuel A. Taylor and Ernest Lehman from a play by Taylor
1954/USA
Paramount Pictures
Repeat viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Baron St. Fontanel: A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven.[/box]

Audrey Hepburn turns every film she is in into a romance.  The audience falls in love with her.

Sabrina (Hepburn) lives on the enormous Larrabee estate with her father who is the family’s chauffeur.  She has an intense crush on the younger son of the family, David (William Holden).  Although he is an oft-married playboy and a slacker, she believes herself to be in love with him to the extent she contemplates suicide when she cannot have him.  Instead, her father sends her off to Paris to learn cooking and forget him.  One of her fellow students at the academy takes her in hand and grooms her into a sophisticated and beautiful woman.

When she returns home after a couple of years, David does not recognize her and promptly begins wooing her.  But David is engaged to the daughter of a sugar tycoon whose company is necessary to the family’s plastics venture.  Then David suffers a mishap and must be confined to bed for several days.  Serious older brother Linus (Humphrey Bogart) is enlisted to entertain Sabrina and secretly cooks up a plan to get her out of the picture.  He should have known he was playing with fire.

This is totally charming, thanks largely to Hepburn.  I also love the romantic music.  William Holden looks funny as a blonde.  It’s nice to see Bogart in a romantic role again. Recommended.

Sabrina won the Academy Award for Best Costume Design, Black-and-White.  It was nominated in the following categories:  Best Actress; Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay; Best Cinematography, Black-and-White; and Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White.

Trailer

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Posted in 1954