White Wall Cinema: REAR WINDOW

Legendary director Alfred Hitchcock is often mistakenly most associated with his hit horror movies such as Psycho or The Birds, but any real Hitchcock lover will tell you these don’t come near top of the list when it comes to the director’s greatest films. Hitchcock movies that employ an air of mystery such as Vertigo, or North By Northwest (amongst many others) are the films that best exemplify the style that earned him the moniker ‘The Master of Suspense’. This outrageously brilliant and incredibly entertaining 1954 mystery romance thriller is undoubtedly among Hitchcock’s best as he employs genius production design and his two ultra magnetic leads Jimmy Stewart & Grace Kelly (as well as the wonderful Thelma Ritter) to brilliant effect to create one of the best (and most referenced) films in all of cinema history. 

When professional photographer L.B. ‘Jeff’ Jeffries (Stewart) is laid up with an injury after an accident he finds himself confined to a wheelchair and a waist high, leg and foot plaster-cast. Despite frequent visits and overtures from his glamorous socialite girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly sporting a series of jaw droppingly gorgeous pieces of couture fashion) and sage advice from his no-nonsense (and hilarious) nurse Stella (Ritter), Jeff can’t help voyeuristically tracking the activities of his neighbours as he looks out across the courtyard from his chair, only to suspect something  entirely more sinister is going on just across the way.

The perfect alternative Valentines film, not only as an undisputed masterpiece of cinema (consistently ranked in the best 50 American films ever made) but as a romantic piece, both through the simultaneously amusing, heart-breaking, sinister and joyous lives of Jeff’s neighbours but through the film’s central enjoyable will they, won’t they relationship between Stewart & Kelly. And after all, what would our now traditional annual alternative Valentine’s romantic special be without something like a suspected murder and some dark humour (here in Hitchcock’s trademark style) thrown into the plot. Book now for a Friday night to remember, whether you are flying solo or bringing your date it doesn’t matter, Rear Window is a joy to watch from beginning to end.

• DOORS: 7.40pm*
• START TIME: 8.10pm*
• RUN TIME: 110 mins
• CERT: 15 (under 16s must be accompanied by an adult)