About this product: 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
About this product: 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
About this product: Johnny Depp gets high off another acting challenge in this tricky adaptation of a Stephen King yarn. Although the mood is too sinister to allow for the mischief of his Pirates of the Caribbean turn, Depp still manages to embroider his role here with plenty of quirky business. He plays a writer, depressed and nearly divorced, who's stuck in an isolated cabin (shades of The Shining) when a stranger (John Turturro) arrives, accusing him of plagiarism. Writer-director David Koepp (Stir of Echoes) does his best to make the rickety material compelling--he gets the maximum out of the cabin set, for instance--but the problems inherent in the King story eventually win out. The climactic scenes are particularly unpleasant, especially in contrast to the cleverness of Depp's performance. A Philip Glass score adds class, but this one ultimately feels like a disappointment. --Robert Horton
About this product: A remote Italian village harbors unspeakable secrets, as young Stefano ("The Garden of the Finzi-Continis'" Lino Capolicchio) discovers when he arrives to restore a local church's decaying, painted fresco depicting the slaughter of St. Sebastian. Townspeople whisper that the original artist painted directly from real life, with models tortured and murdered all in the name of art. Suddenly a new, terrifying chain of murders begins, and Stefano finds himself caught in a chilling web of madness and unspeakable horror from which he may never escape! This exquisite masterpiece of Italian horror seethes with menacing atmosphere and diabolical plot twists guaranteed to haunt your dreams. Never before released in America, "The House with Laughing Windows" (La casa dalle finestre che ridono) is the crowning achievement of internationally hailed director Pupi Avati (The Story of Boys and Girls, Zeder) and has been restored to its full gothic glory from the original camera negative.
About this product: The beautiful and wonderfully named Giovanna Mezzogiorno joins the list of soulful Italian actresses with Facing Windows, a pleasant cinematic fancy. Her character is a married Mom in an ordinary apartment, whose life is affected by two things: her fascination with the handsome man who lives across the courtyard, and the sudden arrival in her home of an elderly amnesiac (played by the late Massimo Girotti)--a well-dressed man found walking on the street, dazed and lost. Turkish-born director Ferzan Ozpetek (Steam: The Turkish Bath) makes this simultaneously a slice of life and a vaguely fantastical situation. It probably all works out a little too neatly, but the unhurried pace and deep sympathy Ozpetek displays toward his main characters is refreshing. And when in doubt, he points the camera at the face of La Mezzogiorno, which solves all problems. --Robert Horton
About this product: A quadriplegic confined to his apartment passes the long hours by spying on his neighbors. His innocent pastime takes a deadly turn when he thinks he witnesses a murder. Studio: Platinum Disc Llc Release Date: 11/30/2004 Starring: Christopher Reeve Daryl Hannah Run time: 120 minutes
About this product: L.A. Confidential director Curtis Hanson had been knocking around Hollywood for several years helming B-grade fare when he wrote and directed this crisp Hitchcock homage. Steve Guttenberg plays a guy who is fooling around with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). When she witnesses an attempted rape from his apartment, he agrees to be the one to report it. But he didn't see it and his story begins to fall apart; soon the cops begin to look at him as a suspect. His life becomes increasingly complex: Before he knows it, he is on the run for murder, framed for a crime he didn't commit with seemingly no way to prove his innocence. Guttenberg, who has built a career on roles in sub-B films, rose to the occasion (though his subsequent taste in material didn't improve) and Hanson gave the film enough suspenseful twists to keep the audience guessing. --Marshall Fine
About this product: Fritz Lang did his best work in Hollywood throughout the 1940s, and The Woman in the Window ranks among his best films from that period. Equally adept at crafting first-rate Westerns and melodramatic thrillers, Lang returned to the latter category for The Woman in the Window, a deliciously devious follow-up to 1944's Ministry of Fear and a near-perfect companion piece to Lang's 1945 follow-up, Scarlet Street. Adapted by producer/screenwriter Nunnally Johnson from J.H. Wallis's novel Once Off Guard, this briskly paced and brilliantly plotted thriller begins with a chance encounter between mild-mannered psychology professor Richard Wanley (Edward G. Robinson) and Alice Reed (Joan Bennett), the stylishly alluring subject of a portrait that Wanley has dreamily admired in a window near the men's club where he socializes with a savvy District Attorney (Raymond Massey) and a friendly physician (Edmund Breon). When Alice invites Wanley to her apartment for casual drinks and conversation, Wanley is forced to kill an intruder, and his subsequent cover-up leads to a nail-biting plot in which Wanley must feign innocence as he "innocently" participates in the D.A.'s investigation with a homicide detective.
Lang was an expert at turning the screws of suspense, and while Johnson's screenplay tempers its convenient coincidences with well-written characters, Robinson's increasing desperation is the engine that drives the plot. When a sleazy blackmailer (Dan Duryea) squeezes Wanley and Reed for every penny they've got, The Woman in the Window winds up to a fever pitch, with a "twist" ending that's either a cop-out or clever, depending on your tolerance for now-familiar surprises. As renowned critic Pauline Kael astutely noted, The Woman in the Window has "the logic and plausibility of a nightmare," and Lang surely enjoyed the superbly cast trio of Robinson, Bennett, and Duryea, for he invited them back for Scarlet Street just a few months later. And speaking of murder, check out the kid playing Robinson's son in one of the opening scenes: that's future real-life murder-conspiracy suspect Bobby (Robert) Blake (subsequently acquitted), at the innocent age of 10. --Jeff Shannon
About this product: Divide into four chapters: Son, Daughter, Father and Mother, Four Windows is a look inside the brains of your not so normal German family. The very handsome and sexy Son leaves for school in the morning only to spend his time cruising the local gay video arcade. There he hooks up with an older man who refuses to give the Son all that he wants. Meanwhile, Dad is hiring a hooker, Mom is flirting with the handyman and Daughter, perhaps the most outrageous of all, is riding the subways, looking for someone to share some intimate moments with. All come together at dinner that night where the secrets they hold come to a head in this provocative and involving film.
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