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REAR WINDOW
(1954)
directed by Alfred Hitchcock

I wonder if it's ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long focus lens. Do you, do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime?



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L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries: I get myself half killed for you and you reward me by stealing my assignments.
Gunderson: I didn't ask you to stand in the middle of that automobile racetrack.



Gunderson: It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome and bitter old man.
Jeff: Yeah, can't you just see me, rushing home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal and the nagging wife...
Gunderson: Jeff, wives don't nag anymore. They discuss.
Jeff: Oh, is that so, is that so? Well, maybe in the high-rent district they discuss. In my neighborhood they still nag.



Jeff's rear window characters:



Miss Torso, the ballet dancer



Mr. Lars Thorwald and his nagging wife



the newly-wed...
all of which comment on Jeff-Lisa relationship or reflect its possible future




Stella: Look, Mr. Jeffries, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and woman see each other and like each other, they oughta come together--wham!--like a couple of taxis on Broadway, and not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.
Jeff: There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.
Stella: Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much touble as intelligence. Ha, modern marriage!
Jeff: Now we've progressed emotionally.
Stella: Baloney! Once, it was see somebody, get excited, get married. Now, it's read a lot of books, fence with a lot of four-syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam.



Lisa...



Carol...



Fremont.
Lisa: How's your leg?
Jeff: Hurts a little.
Lisa: Your stomach?
Jeff: Empty as a football.
Lisa: Anything else bothering you?
Jeff: Yes, who are you?



Jeff: Is this the Lisa Fremont who never wears the same dress twice?
Lisa: Only because it's expected of her. It's right off the Paris plane. You think it will sell?...A steal at eleven hundred dollars.
Jeff: Eleven hundred? They ought to list that dress on the Stock Exchange.
. . .
Lisa: Today's a very special day.
Jeff: It's just another Wednesday. The calendar's full of 'em.



Lisa: You - I can't fit in here - you can't fit in there. I mean, according to you, people should be born, live and die on the same spot.
Jeff: SHUT UP! Did you ever eat fish heads in rice?
Lisa: Of course not.
. . .
Jeff: Lisa. In this job, you carry one suitcase, your home is the available transportation. You don't sleep very much, you bathe less, and sometimes the food that you eat is made from things that you couldn't even look at when they're alive.
Lisa: Jeff, you don't have to be deliberately repulsive just to impress me I'm wrong.



Jeff: 'Miss Lonelyhearts.' Well, at least that's something you'll never have to worry about.
Lisa: Oh? You can see my apartment from here, all the way up on 63rd Street?



Cheers. Jeff connects with one of his characters



Lisa: Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that?
Jeff: He gets it from the landlady once a month.
Lisa: It's utterly beautiful. Wish I could be creative.
Jeff: Oh sweetie, you are. You have a great talent for creating difficult situations.



Stella: We've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people oughta do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of homespun philosophy?
Jeff: Readers Digest, April 1939.
Stella: Well, I only quote from the best.



Jeff: I just can't figure it. He went out several times last night in the rain carrying his sample case.
Stella: Well, he's a salesman, isn't he?
Jeff: Well, what would he be selling at three o'clock in the morning?
Stella: Flashlights. Luminous dials for watches. House numbers that light up.



Itchy eyes. Itchy toes



Stella: Maybe one day she'll find her happiness.
Jeff: Yeah, some man'll lose his.



Jeff: I wonder if it's ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long focus lens. Do you, do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime?
Lisa: I'm not much on rear window ethics.
Jeff: Of course, they can do the same thing to me, watch me like a bug under a glass if they want to.
Lisa: Jeff, you know, if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see.
Jeff: What?
Lisa: You and me with long faces, plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known. You'd think we could be a little bit happy that the poor woman is alive and well.



Lisa: Oh, Stella, your choice of words!
Stella: Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killing yet.
. . .
Stella: Let's go down and find out what's buried in the garden.
Lisa: Why not? I've always wanted to meet Mrs. Thorwald.



Lisa: A woman has a favorite handbag and it always hangs on her bedpost where she can get at it easily. And then all of a sudden, she goes away on a trip and leaves it behind. Why?
Jeff: Because she didn't know she was going on a trip. And where she's going she wouldn't need the handbag.



A man is assaulting a woman at 125 West 9th Street, Second Floor at the rear.



Jeff! Jeff!



Footsteps



Thorwald: What do you want from me? Your friend, the girl, could have turned me in. Why didn't she? What is it you want? A lot of money? I don't have any money.



Thorwald: Say something. Say something. Tell me what you want! Can you get me that ring back?



You got enough for a search warrant now?



In Jeff's rear window world, each story is resolved. Miss Torso is reunited with her boyfriend. Miss Lonelyhearts hook up with the songwriter, whose music prevents her from committing suicide. Thorwald apartments are being repainted. The childless couple gets a new dog. The sculptress finishes her work, 'Hunger'. The newly-weds are beginning to have marital strifes.



And Lisa prepares for Jeff's adventures reading 'Beyond the High Himalayas', but when she notices that Jeff is sleeping, she goes back to reading 'Harper's Bazaar'
The End