Nosy neighbors. They can be a pain—but what if one of them witnesses murder right on your block? That’s the question famed movie director Alfred Hitchcock explores in his classic thriller, Rear Window.
And what if his nosy hero is played by James Stewart? And what if his girlfriend is played by Grace Kelly? And what if the murderer discovers he’s been discovered?
It’s all right up there on the screen—how can an audience resist?
One of the rewarding pleasures of movies is seeing one with friends and then chatting about it when the lights come up. That’s just what the Piedmont Flix Fest, which meets on the second Thursday of each month, offers: a great movie in a comfortable setting, and then a lively discussion of it afterward.
The Flix Fest’s next showing is indeed Rear Window, based on an ingenious Cornell Woolrich short story. Released in 1954, it centers on a recuperating news photographer, L.B. Jeffries (Stewart), who gradually comes to believe he’s witnessed a crime. Confined to a wheelchair after an accident that’s put one of his legs in a cast, he fights boredom by staring out his rear window, secretly peering with a telephoto lens and binoculars into neighboring apartments. He becomes fascinated by odd goings-on in one in particular—why is Lars Thorwald’s wife suddenly gone missing?
Is the burly Thorwald mailing parts of her out of town by UPS?
Assisted by his girlfriend, Lisa Fremont (Kelly) and a friendly cop (Wendell Corey), Jeffries doggedly investigates, putting both himself and Lisa in peril. Hitchcock directs all this deftly, helped by a cast that includes wry and irresistible Thelma Ritter as his nurse, and Raymond Burr, who would go on to play Perry Mason and Ironside on TV, as Thorwald.
Rear Window will be screened on May 8, at 1 p.m. Sponsored by the Rec Department, the event takes place in the Center for the Arts at 801 Magnolia Avenue on the second Thursday of each month. Doors will open at 12:45. The event is free and available to anyone over 18 years of age. Participants are invited on a drop-in basis, though registration with the PRD is encouraged and can be done at https://bit.ly/3PJyxkP. Everyone is welcome to bring snacks or lunch.
The next movie in the Piedmont series is the Marilyn Monroe classic, The Seven Year Itch, to be screened on June 12.