Hitchcock’s Classic ‘Rear Window’ Is Getting a Limited 70th Anniversary Theatrical Re-Release in August 2024
After a couple of premiere screenings in early August 1954, Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic 1954 thriller Rear Window originally opened in wide release on Sept. 1, 1954. Just ahead of its 70th anniversary in 2024, the legendary film is getting a brief theatrical re-release by Fathom Events.
Fathom’s Rear Window 70th Anniversary screening is taking place on Sunday, Aug. 25, 2024, and Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024.
For more info, you can visit the Fathom Events website, or Fandango, or your local theater’s website to see if and when the film is playing in your area (where I am, at least, it is having an afternoon and evening showing on Aug. 25, and just an evening screening on Aug. 28).
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Rear Window earned Hitchcock the fourth of his five Best Director Oscar nominations, and, with the help of his frequent collaborator, Best Cinematography (Color) nominee Robert Burks, the Master of Suspense manages to give the story’s limited setting (basically the bedroom of a New York City apartment and its adjoining courtyard) an ominous and exciting ambiance.
That story is told through the outstanding screenplay adaptation by Oscar nominee John Michael Hayes, the first of his four collaborations with Hitchcock (Hayes also wrote To Catch a Thief, The Trouble With Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much).
Out the window of that apartment, inhabited by L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies (James Stewart), a photographer who is currently house- and wheelchair-bound by a broken leg, he — and we — can see into the windows of various other apartments surrounding the courtyard, through which play out a series of what seem like mini-movies on small screens but are actually the daily lives of real people.
© Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.
It’s interesting how quickly, and almost without realizing, we as the audience become quite comfortable turning into peeping Toms along with Jefferies — and, eventually, his fashion model girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Grace Kelly) and visiting nurse, Stella (Thelma Ritter) — as he tries to alleviate his boredom by watching the tales of the people around him. He doesn’t know their names, so these anonymous folks are given nicknames like “Miss Torso” (Georgine Darcy) or “Miss Lonelyhearts” (Judith Evelyn).
Unfortunately, things turn deadly serious and very dangerous when they begin to suspect that one neighbor across the way — Lars Thorwald (a wonderfully chilling Raymond Burr) — has killed his wife and disposed of her body, and then set out to prove it to skeptical police detective Tom Doyle (Wendell Corey).
Another fascinating way in which Rear Window is so technically brilliant is that it, for the most part, does not rely on music to telegraph its suspense and thrills. There is some intro and outro music composed by Franz Waxman, and one songwriter neighbor of Jefferies’ plays a piano and practices with his band that we hear on occasion, but most often there are just ambient sounds of the city and the neighbors wafting into Jefferies’ apartment that enhance the story with terrific realism, and somehow make the proceedings feel more ominous than a score might have.
Beyond being a terrific filmmaking exercise, though, Rear Window does not forget to also be highly entertaining. It maintains the combination of suspense and subtle (sometimes macabre) wit expected from a Hitchcock film, and the presentation of the neighbors’ windows and the various stories seen through them should look especially impressive on the big screen if you have the chance to see this screening; you will more than likely notice things that might have been cut off on any TV showing or even in special DVD releases.
During its initial run, Rear Window grossed about $5.3 million (about $62.2 million in today’s dollars) to become the ninth highest-grossing film of 1954 (between No. 8, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and No. 10, Magnificent Obsession.
It looks like there have only been two other domestic theatrical re-releases of the film over the years, in 1983 and 2000. So, aside from maybe catching it at one of the few remaining classic movie theaters (likely in a not-so-hot-looking version), this Fathom Events screening may be one of your last best shots to experience Rear Window in an epic widescreen setting (at least before a possible 75th anniversary re-release).