Alfred Hitchcock’s REAR WINDOW – Midnights This Weekend at The Tivoli

“A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window”.

REAR WINDOW plays this weekend (July 15th and 16th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

As with so many of Alfred’s Hitchcock’s films, REAR WINDOW (1954) is a wonderful example of how to take an almost absurdly simple idea and spin out the maximum tension, character, humor and drama from it. It should be boring (a movie set in one room with a guy who can’t move) and ludicrous (a killer who murders his wife and chops her up in front of his neighbors) but it’s quite the opposite – riveting and eerily plausible. If ever there was a film about voyeurism and its relationship to cinema, this is it; Hitchcock tells engrossing little silent movies of the tenants (the newlyweds, the sculptress, Miss Torso, the dog-owners, the killer, the songwriter, Miss Lonelyhearts) without ever cheating and cutting to close-ups of them – we see them all remotely, from Stewart’s detached and aloof point of view. It’s a masterpiece of editing, which builds and builds into a nail-biting final reel, with our hero sitting helplessly alone in the dark while the killer closes in. Jimmy Stewart is wonderful as always as the sardonic prisoner, and is the only leading man not to fawn over costar Grace Kelly, resulting in her best performance, while Thelma Ritter steals the show as Stewart’s wisecracking nurse. Equally fabulous is the production design – contrary to appearances, the whole backyard neighborhood was a very elaborate set on the Paramount backlot, one of the most memorable in any movie. An extremely influential picture, particularly on the career of Brian DePalma (see BODY DOUBLE), with the helpless-witness motif appearing in many fine subsequent thrillers (WAIT UNTIL DARK, THE BIRD WITH THE CRSYTAL PLUMAGE, etc), and a watershed of stylish, intelligent direction. Based on a short story by Cornell Woolrich and deftly scripted by John Michael Hayes, who wrote Hitch’s three subsequent films (notably the sublime THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY). Hitchcock appears in his standard cameo as the guy winding the clock in the songwriter’s loft.

REAR WINDOW plays this weekend (July 15th and 16th) at The Tivoli at midnight as part of their Reel Late at the Tivoli midnight series.

The Tivoli’s located at 6350 Delmar Blvd., University City, MO. Admission is a mere $8!

A Facebook invite for the event can be found HERE

https://www.facebook.com/events/501750386687277/

The Tivoli’s website can be found HERE

Here’s the midnight for the next weekend:

July 22nd and 23rd       Akira

There will be a new list of midnight movies announced at We Are Movie Geeks later this week!