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95-410: Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich 's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder . Originally released by Paramount Pictures , the film stars James Stewart , Grace Kelly , Wendell Corey , Thelma Ritter , and Raymond Burr . It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival . Rear Window

190-412: A Greenwich Village courtyard, with the set stretching from the bottom of the basement storeroom to the top of the lighting grid in the ceiling. The lighting was rigged with four interchangeable scene lighting arrangements: morning, afternoon, evening, and night-time. Set designers Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson spent six weeks building the extremely detailed and complex set, which ended up being

285-523: A blackmailer, Jeff telephones and lures Thorwald away from his apartment to allow Lisa and Stella to investigate Thorwald's flower bed where the dog was digging. Nothing is found, but Lisa climbs the fire escape and through Thorwald's window and searches further for evidence in the flat. Stella hurries back to Jeff and then below Thorwald's apartment, Jeff and Stella are distracted watching a lower ground floor neighbor – coined "Miss Lonely-Hearts " – contemplating an overdose and call

380-594: A degree of class consciousness, such as "a young lady of refinement", "respectably connected", and a "good English education". With the introduction of the Kodak camera in 1888, personal ads became more likely to include a photograph or to state "photos exchanged". Personal ads placed in the 1920s no longer focused on an object of matrimony, but might instead seek companionship, a partner for activities, or sexual dalliances. Ads for same-sex partners used discreet phrasing to avoid legal difficulties. After World War I , there

475-580: A dress similar to one of Edith Head 's designs worn by Grace Kelly . Swift has also stated that the voyeuristic elements of the film inspired the storytelling of her album Folklore. On September 25, 2012, Universal Studios Home Entertainment released Rear Window for the first time on Blu-ray as part of the "Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection". This edition included numerous supplemental features such as an audio commentary from John Fawell, excerpts from Hitchcock's interview with François Truffaut , two theatrical trailers, and an interview with

570-528: A forty-word ad was twenty-five cents; women's ads (also limited to forty words) were free; additional words cost one cent per word for both men and women. Replies to ads were routed through the Matrimonial News offices. By the 1890s, Matrimonial News was printing a large number of fake ads. Between 1870 and 1900, at least twenty periodicals dedicated to personal ads had been launched in England. In 1885,

665-900: A greater age range acceptable than those seeking long-term relationships. In India, matrimonial ads are published in the Sunday editions of major national and regional newspapers. Ads are generally placed by families when it is not feasible to find prospective spouses within their familial or social networks. Matrimonials generally include caste markers, personal attributes, and educational and professional qualifications. The matrimonial listings are grouped first by groom or bride wanted; next, by native language; third, by religion; and fourth, by caste. Personal ad magazines in Russia organize ads in categories such as "He seeks her. Matrimony", "She seeks him. Flirt", "He seeks him", "She seeks her", and "For couples". Due to space limitations in print ads, abbreviations for

760-624: A group of married Black women in Arizona Territory formed the Busy Bee Club to advertise for wives for Arizona miners, hoping to reduce violence in the mining camps and encourage Black women to move to the area. A unique magazine was established in England in 1898, Round-About . It was dedicated to "companionship" ads for people wishing to enter in correspondence with those of the opposite sex. Ads seeking companionship or correspondence, rather than strictly marriage, became more frequent in

855-639: A huge business in West Germany. The "lonely hearts" designation reflected the social stigma associated with personal ads. There were at least 500 lonely hearts clubs by 1961, with membership estimates between 100,000 and 4 million. Club operators referred to themselves as "marriage brokers". As computer dating and single clubs became available, lonely hearts clubs diminished. Magazines and newspapers for matrimonial ads had mostly disappeared in 1961 in England, while newspapers and magazines devoted to personal ads—traditional, explicit, and aberrant—proliferated in

950-399: A manner so carefully foreseen as to seem practically foreordained." Harrison's Reports named the film as a "first-rate thriller" that is "strictly an adult entertainment, but it should prove to be a popular one." They further added, "What helps to make the story highly entertaining is the fact that it is enhanced by clever dialogue and by delightful touches of comedy and romance that relieve

1045-522: A means for exercising some control over their circumstances. An 1890 study of female respondents to personal ads in the United States found that they sought independence from societal expectations and a degree of equality in the matter of marriage. (The criminologist who performed the study was scandalized by the responses, believing "they bordered on moral depravity".) The years following the Civil War in

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1140-434: A middle-aged cynical, tough as boots medical insurance nurse - New Yorkers from either end of the social spectrum bridged by Jeff in the middle. During an intense heat wave and chafing at his restrictions, Jeff watches his various diverse neighbours of the all and sundry population, who keep their windows open to stay cool, noting their differing habits and lifestyles, including a professional dancer, coined "Miss Torso",

1235-491: A person seeks to find another person for friendship, romance, marriage, or sexual activity. In British English, it is commonly known as an advert in a lonely hearts column . In India, it is a dating ad or matrimonial ad . The earliest personal ads were placed in newspapers among other classified ads, and typically had matrimony as the objective. As interest in personal ads grew, newspapers provided personals sections specifically for those ads. Later, newspapers and magazines for

1330-575: A poll and Rear Window was voted the 21st greatest film of all time. In the British Film Institute 's 2012 Sight & Sound polls of the greatest films ever made , Rear Window was ranked 53rd among critics and 48th among directors. In the 2022 edition of the magazine's Greatest films of all time list the film ranked 38th in the critics poll. In 2017 Empire magazine's readers' poll ranked Rear Window at No. 72 on its list of The 100 Greatest Movies . In 2022, Time Out magazine ranked

1425-516: A prime example of how she sees cinema as incorporating the patriarchy into the way that pleasure is constructed and signaled to the audience. Additionally, she sees the " male gaze " as especially evident in Rear Window in characters such as the dancer "Miss Torso;" she is both a spectacle for Jeff to enjoy, as well as for the audience (through his substitution). In his 1954 review of the film, François Truffaut suggested "this parable: The courtyard

1520-508: A production company set up by Hitchcock and Stewart, a subsequent rights holder refused to acknowledge previous rights agreements. As a result, Stewart and Hitchcock's estate became involved in the Supreme Court case. Its outcome led to the litigant, Sheldon Abend, becoming credited as a producer of the 1998 remake of Rear Window . The film was shot entirely at stage 17 at Paramount Studios which included an enormous indoor set to replicate

1615-481: A significant numerical surplus of women, due to emigration and earlier deaths. States in the western United States which suffered from the imbalance between men and women passed numerous laws intended to encourage women to immigrate, such as property protection for women (as opposed to coverture laws common in eastern states) and female suffrage. The welcoming political climate was an incentive for women to respond to marriage ads and marriage recruiting efforts. In

1710-512: A songwriter with writer's block, and notably a large traveling salesman of wholesale costume jewelry , Lars Thorwald, hen-pecked by his bedridden wife. One night, Jeff, alone, hears a woman scream followed by the sound of breaking glass. Later that night just before 2 a.m., after dozing in the heat in his wheelchair, Jeff wakes as a thunderstorm breaks. He observes Thorwald making repeated half-hour excursions carrying his aluminium sample case. Later still that night, after Jeff dozes off again, Thorwald

1805-598: A unique shorthand so ads can fit within the restraint of 50 words or less. For example, BHP stands for biodata (résumé), horoscope, and photograph; "veg" means vegetarian; and VF is the abbreviation for very fair (light-skinned). Theft, fraud, and seduction were the crimes most common with matrimonial ads. By 1900, most jurisdictions in the United States had criminalized seduction, allowed punitive and exemplary damages for breach of promise actions, and increased recognition of common-law marriages, all of which helped reduce some crimes associated with matrimonial ads. In Sweden,

1900-522: A wave of popular theatrical straight mystery films were released theatrically including Kenneth Brannagh 's Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and Rian Johnson 's Knives Out (2019) as well as on streaming services with the parodic Murder Mystery (2019) starring Adam Sandler . Mystery films mainly focus on a crime or a puzzle , usually a murder , which must then be solved by policemen , private detectives , or amateur sleuths. The viewer

1995-589: A woman to reply to these ads was considered a patriotic act. Many military men and their correspondents formed romantic relationships. In 1870, entrepreneur Leslie Fraser Duncan established the Matrimonial News in England, offering 40-word ads for six pence. The following year, Duncan opened offices in San Francisco and Kansas City, Missouri. Publishing thousands of personal ads, Matrimonial News served for three decades to "promote marriage and conjugal felicity". Many ads included photographs. The cost to men for

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2090-642: Is 'about' spectacle; it explores the fascination with looking and the attraction of that which is being looked at." In an explicit example of a condemnation of voyeurism, Stella expresses her outrage at Jeffries' voyeuristic habits, saying, "In the old days, they'd put your eyes out with a red hot poker" and "What people ought to do is get outside and look in for a change." With further analysis, Jeff's positive evolution understandably would be impossible without voyeurism—or as Robin Wood puts it in his 1989 book Hitchcock's Films Revisited , "the indulging of morbid curiosity and

2185-472: Is a modern-day retelling, with the protagonist ( Shia LaBeouf ) under house arrest instead of laid up with a broken leg, and who believes that his neighbor is a serial killer rather than having committed a single murder. On September 5, 2008, the Sheldon Abend Trust sued Steven Spielberg , DreamWorks , Viacom , and Universal Studios , alleging that the producers of Disturbia violated the copyright to

2280-597: Is considered by many filmgoers, critics, and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's best, as well as one of the greatest films ever made . It received four Academy Award nominations, and was ranked number 42 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list and number 48 on the 10th-anniversary edition , and in 1997 was added to the United States National Film Registry in the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." The film

2375-431: Is credited with the score for the film, his contributions were limited to the opening and closing titles and the piano tune ("Lisa"). This was Waxman's final score for Hitchcock. The director used primarily " diegetic " sounds—sounds arising from the normal life of the characters—throughout the film. On August 4, 1954, a "benefit world premiere" was held for the film, with United Nations officials and "prominent members of

2470-525: Is no longer in bed and the mattress is rolled up. Jeff calls his friend and war buddy in the US Air Force reconnaissance , Tom Doyle, a detective lieutenant with the New York City Police , and requests that he investigate Thorwald. A very skeptical Doyle investigates extensively and finds nothing suspicious, and allays the suspicions of Jeff and Lisa. Later that night, the pet toy dog belonging to

2565-416: Is presented with a series of suspects who have a motive to commit the crime but did not actually do it, and whom the investigator must eliminate during the course of the investigation. At times the viewer is presented with information not available to the main character. The central character usually explores the unsolved crime, unmasks the perpetrator, and puts an end to the effects of the villainy. During

2660-599: Is seen leaving his apartment along with a woman obscured by a large floppy-brimmed black hat. The next morning, Jeff notices Thorwald's wife is gone, and sees him cleaning a large knife and handsaw. Thorwald also has moving-men haul away a large trunk. After digging out his binoculars and then his camera with a high-power telephoto zoom lens , a suspicious Jeff starts closely observing Thorwald's activities. He becomes convinced that Thorwald has murdered his wife, and tells first Stella, who believes him, and then later to an initially doubting Lisa until they notice that Thorwald's wife

2755-432: Is surveilling his apartment. Jeff phones Doyle and leaves an urgent message while Stella goes to bail Lisa out of jail. Thorwald locates and attacks Jeff in his darkened apartment, his only defense being his camera flash bulbs. While grappling, Doyle and other officers storm the courtyard – followed by Lisa and Stella – and arrest Thorwald just as he drops Jeff out the window to fall two storeys to

2850-505: Is the world, the reporter/photographer is the filmmaker, the binoculars stand for the camera and its lenses." John Fawell notes in Dennis Perry's book Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror that Hitchcock "recognized that the darkest aspect of voyeurism ... is our desire for awful things to happen to people ... to make ourselves feel better, and to relieve ourselves of the burden of examining our own lives." Hitchcock challenges

2945-488: The AIDS crisis . Ads placed by lesbians value personal characteristics, such as humor and intelligence, and also mates who describe themselves as "feminine". They are generally less likely than heterosexual women to include descriptions of their own physical characteristics in their ads. Ads placed by gay men place an importance on physical attractiveness similar to heterosexual men. Gay men seeking sexual activities indicate

Rear Window - Misplaced Pages Continue

3040-860: The Crime Doctor , Warren William as the Lone Wolf and Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. These smaller budget films led to more major productions such as John Huston 's The Maltese Falcon (1941) while Murder, My Sweet (1944) introduced the character Philip Marlowe to film. Marlowe would appear again in The Big Sleep (1946) while other films author Martin Rubin deemed as notable detective mysteries included Laura (1944). These detective films drew upon thriller and thriller-related genres with their nocturnal atmosphere and style influenced by expressionism . They often overlapped with film noir , which arose in

3135-556: The Ledger cost twenty-five cents. In 1840, an editorial in the paper claimed that most ads received 25–500 replies on average. From 1866 until the 20th century, the most widely read newspaper in the United States, the New York Herald , printed personal ads on the front page. In France, the magazine Le Chasseur français ( The French Hunter ) first published matrimonial ads in the 1880s. Many 18th century newspaper readers considered

3230-453: The silent film era, including numerous films involving Sherlock Holmes, Boston Blackie and The Lone Wolf . Mystery and detective films were among the most popular genres of the silent film era. This ranged to American, British, German and Danish adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and European series like Nick Carter , Nat Pinkerton and Miss Nobody. With the beginning of sound film , mystery film series came into their own with Philo Vance in

3325-425: The 1910s either owed to Sherlock Holmes but that contemporary reviews such as that of Moving Picture World in 1911 bemoaned the lack of a proper Sherlock Holmes adaptation in "Doctor Doyle's finished style." By 1915, the same trade paper stated that "strange as it may seem, the story of crime mystery is fast degenerating into one of stock properties." There were several mystery and detective films produced during

3420-535: The 1929 film The Canary Murder Case .A series of films continued in until 1947. Other series followed such as Charlie Chan which began in 1931 and ended in 1949 with 44 films produced. In the 1930s, most of the major Hollywood film studios produced mystery series, with MGM having Nick and Nora Charles and Joel and Garda Sloane, Warner Bros. having Perry Mason , Torchy Blane , Brass Bancroft and Nancy Drew . Universal had Bill Crane while Fox had Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto . American mystery film series of

3515-565: The 1930s predominantly relied on mystery literature for inspiration. About every character from the 1930s drew from literature, such as Charlie Chan, Nick and Nora Charles, Thatcher Colt , Perry Mason, and Mr. Wong . The 1930s featured many female detectives of various ages from Nancy Drew, Torchy Blane and Hildegarde Withers while the 1940s had none. Productions in the 1930s were occasionally A-budget pictures such as The Black Camel (1931), Aresene Lupin (1932) and The Thin Man (1934). By

3610-399: The 1930s with major studios featuring detectives like Nick and Nora Charles , Perry Mason , Nancy Drew and Charlie Chan . While original mystery film series were based on novels, by the 1940s many were sourced from comics and radio series. Towards the 1940s these series were predominantly produced as b-movies , with nearly no mystery series being developed by the 1950s. Around the 2020s

3705-549: The 1940s, film detectives came from multiple sources such as radio and comic strips and many others had original scripts. MGM, Warner Brothers, and Paramount had generally halted their production of mystery films by 1942 leaving production to these films being made by RKO , Columbia , Universal and other more minor studios. This led to what author Ron Backer described as 1940s mystery films as being "almost always B-productions" with actors who were "past their prime". These included Chester Morris as Boston Blackie, Warner Baxter as

3800-635: The 1952 Paramount film Road to Bali . Also heard on the soundtrack are versions of songs popularized earlier in the decade by Nat King Cole (" Mona Lisa ", 1950) and Dean Martin (" That's Amore ", 1952), along with segments from Leonard Bernstein 's score for Jerome Robbins ' ballet Fancy Free (1944), Richard Rodgers 's song " Lover " (1932), and " M'appari tutt'amor " from Friedrich von Flotow 's opera Martha (1844), most borrowed from Paramount's music publisher, Famous Music . Hitchcock used costume designer Edith Head on all of his Paramount films. Although veteran Hollywood composer Franz Waxman

3895-543: The 1960s, The Village Voice began publishing personal ads, and ads from swingers appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1961. The earliest periodical used for gay personals was The Hobby Directory , established in 1946 by the National Association of Hobbyists for Men and Boys. The magazine consisted solely of personal ads, purportedly for members to "find hobby friends". The Hobby Directory

Rear Window - Misplaced Pages Continue

3990-499: The Nile (2022). Other variations of included Rian Johnson 's Knives Out which was not an adaptation of a golden age work, but was Johnson's first foray into the "puzzle-mystery" style, and was the second highest-grossing film in America in 2019. Personal advertisement A personal advertisement , sometimes called a contact ad , is a form of classified advertising in which

4085-409: The United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". By this time, the film interested other directors with its theme of voyeurism, and other reworkings of the film soon followed, which included Brian De Palma 's 1984 film Body Double and Phillip Noyce 's 1993 film Sliver . In 1998 Time Out magazine conducted

4180-414: The United States brought a huge mismatch in the number of available men in the east (more than 600,000 killed in the war) and in the number of available women on the western frontier, where mostly men had migrated to pursue mining, fur trading, farming, logging, and exploring. Rural areas of Illinois in the 1850s, for example, averaged one woman for every twenty-five men. In England, the 1861 census revealed

4275-410: The United States during the late 1960s. The underground paper, International Times , founded in 1966, was the first to publish openly gay personal ads. After homosexuality was legalized in England in 1967, new publications featuring personal ads for homosexuals were established, such as Jeffrey and Gay Times , and gay ads began to appear in mainstream publications by the end of the 1970s. By

4370-573: The United States were satirical . A London magazine published a satirical marriage ad in 1660, supposedly from a widow urgently in need of "any man that is Able to labour in her Corporation". By 1691, entire catalogs of satirical ads for husbands and wives were published for entertainment. The New-England Courant , by brothers James and Benjamin Franklin , printed a satirical marriage ad on its front page on April 13, 1722, ridiculing those who married for money. The first genuine personal ad in England

4465-481: The Year List in 1955. Time called it "just possibly the second-most entertaining picture (after The 39 Steps ) ever made by Alfred Hitchcock" and a film in which there is "never an instant ... when Director Hitchcock is not in minute and masterly control of his material." The reviewer also noted the "occasional studied lapses of taste and, more important, the eerie sense a Hitchcock audience has of reacting in

4560-532: The accident of two racing cars disintegrating in the crash is seen – restricted to a wheelchair in his infrequently used, small and basically equipped apartment in Chelsea - Greenwich Village region of Manhattan. His mid-floor rear window overlooks out onto a courtyard with small garden plots and other apartments in the surrounding blocks. Jeff is regularly visited by his idealistic young socialite and haute couture model girlfriend Lisa Fremont and Stella,

4655-533: The ads seek someone to donate eggs or sperm to enable the advertisers to have children. The first online dating service was founded by Joan Ball in 1964. Operation Match , begun in 1965, was the first online dating service in the United States. These services involved questionnaires and computer matching. Match.com in 1995 was one of the first sites to host personal ads online. At the time, few people had computer access. As Internet access increased, so did interest in online personal ads and computer dating, with

4750-447: The advertiser (such as sex, age, physical appearance, ethnic group, religion, interests, professional and personal characteristics), and information about the type of person the advertiser is seeking. Men placing ads seeking women mostly specify younger ages, while women placing ads seeking men look for partners their age or older. Some analyses identify ads by favored groups (older men and younger women) as stating more requirements for

4845-445: The advertiser to tailor the narrative portion of the ad to their specific objectives. Multiple aspects of 19th century society in England combined to make personal ads a viable alternative: the general confinement of women to " private life "; professions such as trade or the military, limiting both the time and social network to meet potential partners; remote locations with small populations; urban expansion that brought many people to

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4940-575: The advertisers. As more women began to place ads, more discreet shops and libraries became the preferred intermediaries, as only men frequented coffee houses. Possibly the earliest genuine personal ad in the United States was published on February 23, 1759, on page 3 of the Boston Evening-Post . The Public Ledger in Philadelphia, founded in 1836, was the first newspaper in the United States to feature personal ads regularly. Marriage ads in

5035-424: The audience, forcing them to peer through his rear window and become exposed to, as Donald Spoto calls it in his 1976 book The Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures , the "social contagion" of acting as voyeur. In his book Alfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window" , John Belton further addresses the underlying issues of voyeurism which he asserts are evident in the film. He says " Rear Window's story

5130-622: The book on exploration titled Beyond the High Himalayas and turns instead to read the high fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar . Uncredited Cast notes The filming perspective was done almost entirely in Jeff's apartment and from his near static point-of-view at his window. In Laura Mulvey 's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she identifies what she sees as voyeurism and scopophilia in Hitchcock's movies, with Rear Window used as

5225-505: The cities, where they were apart from the social and familial networks they had been accustomed to. For some, there were no potential partners nearby; for others, there were potential partners but no means of meeting them in a socially acceptable manner. In the United States, between 1820 and 1860, populations in cites had increased by 797%, many of the new urbanites lacking social or family networks through which they might meet potential partners. Women in particular found personal ads to be

5320-417: The classical mystery fiction, such as the parodic Murder Mystery starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston which was one of Netflix's most popular films of 2019. Sandberg noted that only by the 2020s, specifically with Kenneth Branagh 's 2017 The Murder on the Orient Express had the genre been financially successful again with more than $ 350 million grossed worldwide, leading to a sequel Death on

5415-591: The colloquial saying "sun and spring" ( Sol-och-vårande  [ sv ] ) to mean "love fraud" refers to fraudster Karl Vesterberg, who placed personal ads in the early 1900s, signing each with sol-och-vårande . The most famous "sun and spring" was Gustaf Raskenstam  [ sv ] , who used personal ads to defraud over a hundred women of money in the 1940s. The U.S. Postal Service warned consumers of fraudulent activity associated with "lonely hearts clubs" in its 1967 Mail Fraud booklet. Some people use personal ads to ask for money, supposedly to travel to meet

5510-506: The consequences of that indulgence." The screenplay, which was written by John Michael Hayes , was based on Cornell Woolrich 's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder . However, in 1990 the question as to who owned the film rights of Woolrich's original story went before the Supreme Court of the United States in Stewart v. Abend . Although the film was copyrighted in 1954 by Patron Inc. by

5605-439: The demands of modern employment practices". However, personals have also been used by criminals— con artists , fraudsters , and killers —to find and lure victims. Public opinion toward personal ads varies over time, from disapproval and suspicion in the 17th and 18th centuries to a patriotic service in the United States during the Civil War and to general public acceptance in modern day. The earliest personal ads in England and

5700-890: The desired partner, while ads by less valuable groups (younger men and older women) being less restrictive. In general, the older the advertiser, the more likely that their ad includes language to mitigate their age, such as "youthful 44", "young at heart", or "young outlook". Multiple studies of personal ads in the 20th century found that ads from men seeking women are more likely to place importance on physical attractiveness and ads from women seeking men are more likely to focus on financial security and psychological characteristics. Research in 1998 found increased mentions of professional and personality characteristics by both men and women, as well as more mentions of attractiveness of potential partners in ads placed by women. It also noted an emphasis on nonsmoking by both men and women. A 1989 study found an emphasis on health in gay ads, likely related to

5795-514: The early 20th century, answering matrimonial ads was a route to entering the United States after immigration limits became more restrictive. It was also a means of escaping war-torn regions. In 1922, two ships docked in New York with 900 mail-order brides from Turkey, Romania, Armenia, and Greece, fleeing the Greco-Turkish War . Most ads in the 1700s were placed by men; of those placed by women,

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5890-406: The early 20th century, there was substantial overlap between the genres of detective film and horror film , and the term "mystery" was used to encompass both. The works of Arthur Conan Doyle were often adapted to the screen in early cinema, specifically with Sherlock Holmes such as Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900). Gary Don Rhodes wrote that the large volume of detective films released in

5985-585: The early 20th century. The publisher of a popular magazine, The Link , was charged in 1921 for conspiring to corrupt public morals by "introducing men to men for unnatural and grossly indecent practices" as gay men were placing discreetly worded ads in The Link . In the United States, the number of personal ads decreased drastically during the 1930s through the 1950s, as dating became more common and acceptable, more men and women were attending college, and couples had greater mobility as cars were more available. In

6080-438: The film a "tense and exciting exercise" and deemed Hitchcock as a director whose work has a "maximum of build-up to the punch, a maximum of carefully tricked deception and incidents to divert and amuse." Crowther also noted that "Mr. Hitchcock's film is not 'significant.' What it has to say about people and human nature is superficial and glib, but it does expose many facets of the loneliness of city life, and it tacitly demonstrates

6175-710: The film at No. 26 on their list of "The 100 best thriller films of all time". Rear Window was restored by the team of Robert A. Harris and James C. Katz for its 1999 limited theatrical re-release (using Technicolor dye-transfer prints for the first time in this title's history) and the Collector's Edition DVD release in 2000. American Film Institute included the film as number 42 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies , number 14 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills , number 48 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) and number three in AFI's 10 Top 10 (Mysteries). Rear Window

6270-430: The film has a weighted average score of a very rare perfect 100 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". In his 2012 review of the film, Killian Fox of The Guardian wrote: "Hitchcock made a career out of indulging our voyeuristic tendencies, and he never excited them more skilfully, or with more gleeful self-awareness, than in Rear Window ". In 1997, Rear Window was selected for preservation in

6365-482: The film's screenwriter John Michael Hayes . On May 6, 2014, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment re-released Rear Window on Blu-ray with the same supplemental features. Informational notes Citations Further reading Mystery film While cinema featured characters such as Sherlock Holmes in the early 1900s, several other Sherlock Holmes likes characters appeared such as Boston Blackie and The Lone Wolf . Several series of mystery films started in

6460-515: The first free dating sites appearing between 2005 and 2010. With smartphones , dating apps such as Tinder became popular. While personal ads in publications never gained social acceptance in France, the use of online dating sites are more popular. Online personal ads are freed from the space limitations of print ads. Additionally, websites and apps that host personals typically provide automated menus or sortable categories for common information, freeing

6555-771: The first ... And because Hitchcock makes us accomplices in Stewart's voyeurism , we're along for the ride. When an enraged man comes bursting through the door to kill Stewart, we can't detach ourselves, because we looked too, and so we share the guilt and in a way we deserve what's coming to him." In 1983, reviewing the film Vincent Canby wrote "Its appeal, which goes beyond that of other, equally masterly Hitchcock works, remains undiminished." The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 98% based on 130 reviews, with an average rating of 9.30/10. The critics' consensus states that "Hitchcock exerted full potential of suspense in this masterpiece." At Metacritic ,

6650-435: The ground. Thorwald confesses to his wife's murder to the arresting police detectives. Doyle, still formally dressed for a night out with his wife, relays a question from Stella as to what was buried under the flowers. Stella is told it was a hat box, now in the flat, but at being offered a chance to check it out, her ghoulishness swiftly departs and she claims that she wants to have nothing more to do with it. A few days later,

6745-405: The heat wave has broken and life in the apartment complex has returned to normal. Miss Lonely-Hearts is seen in a semi-romantic position with the songwriter in his studio apartment. Jeff has broken his other leg in the fall and so now has both legs up in casts. Lisa is seen stretched out next to him, wearing a much more casual outfit and reading a travel book. After noticing Jeff asleep, she puts down

6840-444: The impulse of morbid curiosity. The purpose of it is sensation, and that it generally provides in the colorfulness of its detail and in the flood of menace toward the end." Variety called the film "one of Alfred Hitchcock's better thrillers" which "combines technical and artistic skills in a manner that makes this an unusually good piece of murder mystery entertainment." The film ranked fifth on Cahiers du Cinéma ' s Top 10 Films of

6935-416: The largest of its kind at Paramount. One of the unique features of the set was its massive drainage system, constructed to accommodate the rain sequence in the film. They also built the set around a highly nuanced lighting system which was able to create natural-looking lighting effects for both the day and night scenes. Though the address given in the film is 125 W. Ninth Street in New York's Greenwich Village,

7030-468: The late 1980s, publications as disparate as the New York Law Journal and The New York Review of Books added personal ads to their content. Placing an ad to find a romantic partner had become an acceptable alternative to conventional methods of meeting people. A unique form of personal ad began to appear in the 1990s: ads to find reproductive partners. Typically placed by lesbians or gay men,

7125-406: The majority were by widows. The earliest ads placed an emphasis on economic factors, but by the end of the 18th century, ads revealed an interest in romantic love. Despite the shifting interest toward compatibility and personality, money continued to be mentioned in ads through the 19th century. From about 1820 to 1870, ads from women rarely appeared. By 1884, working-class men and women joined

7220-427: The mid-1940s and was coined by French critics in 1946. The style was not acknowledge by American filmmakers, critics or audiences while these films were being developed until the 1970s. Mystery films series disappeared by the 1950s. With the exception of Miss Marple films in the 1960s, it was rare to find films with a female lead that had any sequels. Bran Nicol found that the more traditional "clue-puzzle mystery"

7315-402: The middle class in the personal ad pages. Ads in the 19th century were mostly placed by men in their twenties, frequently claiming to be "of good character" and "respectable". The ads indicated that the top priority for respondents was age, with 18–25 being most desirable. The men sought personality traits such as "amiable", "agreeable", or "of good disposition". They also used terms reflecting

7410-512: The neighbor one floor up from the Thorwalds is found dead in the courtyard. Its alarmed owner yells, drawing the attention of everyone, except Thorwald, who sits silently in his dark apartment lit only by the glow of his lit cigar. Convinced his theory is true, Jeff has Lisa pull out some slides taken two weeks earlier and through a slide viewer he spots that some flowers have grown shorter, against all good reason. The following night, pretending to be

7505-549: The original Woolrich story owned by Abend. On September 21, 2010, the U.S. District Court in Abend v. Spielberg , 748 F.Supp.2d 200 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), ruled that Disturbia did not infringe the original Woolrich story. Rear Window has been homaged and spoofed in numerous episodes of television, including the Pretty Little Liars episode " How the 'A' Stole Christmas ", season four episode seven of 9-1-1 and "Night Terrors" ,

7600-400: The other person. The booklet describes one individual who claimed to have a potential fortune in oil claims, needing "only another few thousand dollars" for development. Earning an estimated $ 50,000 a year through personal ads, he was eventually convicted of mail fraud and sentenced to prison. In one instance, a man placed personal ads in publications throughout the United States, claiming to be

7695-573: The personal ads to be jokes, hoaxes, or scams. Georgian society enjoyed mocking personal ads in plays such as Isaac Bickerstaffe 's Love in the City , W.T. Moncrieff 's Wanted: a wife , Sarah Gardner 's The Advertisement , George Macfarren 's Winning a Husband , and Maria Hunter's Fitzroy . A popular anonymous novel in 1799 was Belinda; or, An Advertisement for a Husband . Newspapers in England reported on successful marriages resulting from personal ads, and printed cautionary tales when an advertiser

7790-421: The police. The songwriter has finally finished his song Mona Lisa and plays it loudly causing Miss Lonely-Hearts to not go through with her suicide attempt. As they wait, Thorwald unexpectedly returns early and catches Lisa on his property. The police intervene as the pair scuffles. During their questioning, Lisa signals to Jeff that she is wearing Mrs Thorwald's wedding ring. Thorwald sees this and realizes Jeff

7885-462: The second episode of season 2 of the British crime drama Whitstable Pearl . In February 2008, the film was referenced as a part of Variety's The 2008 Hollywood Portfolio: Hitchcock Classics spread, with Scarlett Johansson and Javier Bardem as Lisa and Jeff, respectively. Rear Window has been referenced multiple times by Taylor Swift . In the music video for her single " Me! ", Swift wears

7980-414: The set was actually based on a real courtyard located at 125 Christopher Street . In addition to the meticulous care and detail put into the set, careful attention was also given to sound, including the use of natural sounds and music that would drift across the courtyard and into Jefferies' apartment. At one point, the voice of Bing Crosby can be heard singing "To See You Is to Love You," originally from

8075-726: The social and entertainment worlds" at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City, with proceeds going to the American–Korean Foundation (an aid organization founded soon after the end of the Korean War and headed by Milton S. Eisenhower , brother of President Eisenhower ). During its initial theatrical run, Rear Window earned $ 5.3 million in North American box office rentals. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called

8170-548: The sole purpose of personal ads were published. Lonely hearts clubs were organized in the 20th century to provide listings of ads to their fee-paying members. With the advent of the Internet , personal ads began to appear on online sites as well, eventually turning into profiles on dating sites and apps. Personal ads have been described by a researcher as "a valuable way of finding potential mates for those whose social world has been artificially constrained by contemporary urban life and

8265-507: The tension." Nearly 30 years after the film's initial release, Roger Ebert reviewed the re-release by Universal Pictures in October 1983, after Hitchcock's estate was settled . He said the film "develops such a clean, uncluttered line from beginning to end that we're drawn through it (and into it) effortlessly. The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from

8360-506: The vocabulary of personal ads became conventional in the 20th century. Some of the earliest abbreviations appeared in personal ads in Gay Times . Some abbreviations describe the advertiser and target of the ad by marital status, ethnic group, and sex, such as MWM (married white male) and DBF (divorced black female). Some indicated a common characteristic, such as GSOH (good sense of humor) and NS (non-smoking). In India, matrimonial ads use

8455-505: Was "well-served" by 1960s and 70s film adaptations like The Alphabet Murders (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and Death on the Nile (1978), the decades following it left mystery adaptations to be made for television as the "default home of sumptuous Golden Age adaptations" Eric Sandberg ( Crime Fiction Studies ) stated that while film streaming services were predominantly dominated by iterations of Nordic noir and police procedurals , there have been works inspired

8550-439: Was a "surplus" of 1.7 million women in England, and the number of personal ads placed by women began to exceed the number placed by men. While early ads frequently specified marriage as the objective, in later years, ads revealed a greater range of expectations, such as the ambiguous "to meet", companionship, long-term relationship, platonic friendships, and casual sexual encounters. Modern ads generally include information about

8645-480: Was made to look foolish or found himself trapped in an unfortunate pairing. American newspapers printed stories ridiculing matrimonial ads and editorials accusing the ads of soliciting nonmarital sex. In the United States, women placing or answering personal ads were met with public disapproval and suspicion. This changed during the Civil War : soldiers and sailors placed personal ads to find correspondents, and for

8740-411: Was made with a budget of $ 1 million ($ 11,675,427.51 in 2024 inflation), and grossed $ 37 million ($ 431,990,817.84 in 2024 inflation) at the box office. Professional photojournalist and fashion photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies is recuperating from serious injuries in a plaster cast from his waist to foot, including a broken hip and leg, from flying crash debris – his mounted photograph of

8835-437: Was openly sold in craft stores. Matrimonial or "lonely hearts" clubs began forming in the 20th century, primarily in the United States. These clubs accepted ads from their members for an enrollment fee. Some clubs published papers and magazines dedicated to members' ads or compiled the ads into lists and catalogs that were mailed to the club members. Post-World War II, lonely hearts clubs and marriage advisory bureaus became

8930-502: Was published on July 19, 1695, in a weekly pamphlet published by John Houghton . London's 53 major newspapers all published matrimonial ads by 1710. In 1761, the first personal ad in England written by a woman was published in the Aris Gazette . In addition to the offices of the newspapers themselves, various local businesses, such as haberdashers, booksellers, and especially coffee houses, accepted replies to personal ads on behalf of

9025-638: Was remade as a TV movie of the same name in 1998, with an updated storyline in which the lead character is paralyzed and lives in a high-tech home filled with assistive technology. Actor Christopher Reeve , himself paralyzed as a result of a 1995 horse-riding accident, was cast in the lead role. The telefilm also starred Daryl Hannah , Robert Forster , Ruben Santiago-Hudson , and Anne Twomey . Rear Window has directly influenced plot elements and themes of numerous Brian De Palma films, particularly Hi, Mom! (1970), Sisters (1972), Dressed to Kill (1980), and Body Double (1984). Disturbia (2007)

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