REAR WINDOW (Paramount – Patron, 1954). Dir Alfred Hitchcock. Screenplay by John Michael Hayes, from the short story “It Had to Be Murder” by Cornell Woolrich. With James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, Raymond Burr. (112 min, Technicolor, 35mm print from the Universal Pictures Collection)
Confined to a wheelchair with a broken leg, a photographer spends time spying on his neighbors and eventually comes to believe that one of them committed a murder. Widely regarded as an American cinema classic and one of Hitchcock’s greatest films, “Rear Window” is an artistic and technical triumph the impact of which has not diminished over the years. It was shot on a single set consisting of thirty-one apartments and with an array of different camera lenses to convey the main character’s perspective, which is also the audience’s point of view as it is stuck in the apartment with the protagonist and allowed to leave only when he leaves. In Hitchcock’s own words, the film “was structurally satisfactory because it is the epitome of the subjective treatment. A man looks; he sees; he reacts.” Selected for the National Film Registry in 1997.
Seating is on a first-come first-serve basis. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
Thursday, August 21, 2025
07:00 pm – 09:00 pm EDT
James Madison Building – Pickford Theater (LM302)
101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, DC 20540