FILM : Sneaking Peeks From A ‘Window’

When he made “Rear Window,” Alfred Hitchcock knew that we all sorta like to peek.

His main character, excitement-starved photographer Jeff Jeffries (James Stewart), is a compulsive peeker. He doesn’t have much else to do, hobbled as he is by a broken leg. He sits in his Greenwich Village apartment and watches from his window, all day long and late into the night.

While observing his neighbors, Jeff invents little stories about them. Look, there’s “Miss Lonely Hearts;” she never gets a date. And next door, check out pretty “Miss Torso,” who has more dates than she can handle.

Pretty innocent stuff. But when he fixes his attention--and his Telephoto lens--on Lars Thorwald (Raymond Burr), everything turns ugly.

Jeff gets the idea that Thorwald may have killed his wife, and begins peeking with a frenzy, trying to unravel the clues. Thorwald could be a murderer, but Jeff’s voyeurism is creepy in itself. Hitchcock implicates Jeff--and the rest of us, because we so closely identify with his snooping--in this gem from 1954, being shown Thursday as part of the Saddleback College/Edwards Cinemas classic film series.

This aura of participation is what makes “Rear Window” so extraordinary. We’re sort of lulled into Jeff’s obsession at the start, realizing that we too might be susceptible to such a temptation if faced with the same grinding boredom. When Jeff crosses the line, beginning to intrude on his neighbors’ privacy, we watch a bit less comfortably.

Hitchcock uses the impossibly beautiful Grace Kelly shrewdly, in one of her smoothest performances as Jeff’s girlfriend. She’s always chiding Jeff about his peeking, and her patrician looks and manners (contrasted with Stewart’s rumpled style) heighten the seaminess of the world Jeff has entered.

Thorwald’s eeriness also is striking, even though we hardly ever hear his voice and always observe him from a great distance. Just following his movements through his very ordinary apartment is an exercise in suspense.

As usual, Hitchcock uses his camera to generate exceptional moments. The shifts from the static quality of Jeff’s apartment to the liveliness outside help us welcome those stares through the Telephoto. And “Rear Window” features several of the director’s heralded tracking shots, including a famous sweep tailing Thorwald as he leaves his room and ventures into the street below. When he disappears and Jeff loses touch with him, the sense of helplessness that overtakes Jeff extends to the audience as well.

What: “Rear Window” (1954) by Alfred Hitchcock.

When: Thursday, Sept. 3, at 7 p.m.

Where: Edwards Crown Valley cinema, 26862 Crown Valley Parkway, Mission Viejo.

Whereabouts: Take Interstate 5 to the Crown Valley Parkway exit and head east. The theater is in the Mission Viejo Mall.

Wherewithal: $6.50.

Where to Call: (714) 582-4656.