La finestra sul cortile

Although this re-make is OK as re-makes go, it would be next to impossible for anyone to equal the directing genius of Hitchcock or the mastery of Jimmy Stewart. As terrific an actor Christopher Reeves is, I think he bit off more than he could chew when he tried to re-make the character played by Jimmy Stewart, one of the greatest rated actors in motion picture history. The same goes for Darryl Hannah. She is a good actress, but one could easily argue the superiority of Grace Kelly. I admire the attempts of these people, however, when one ventures to remake a Hitchcock classic like Rear Window, one should stay closer to the original story line. They don't call him the master of suspense for nothing.

So many films have been remade in recent years, and I'm always fascinated as to why. The only justifiable reason that I can see for remaking a film, is if the original had potential, but was in the hands of the wrong director. In the case of 'Rear Window', Alfred Hitchcock's original version was close to perfection. That being the case, why did anyone feel a need to remake it? While sticking to the basic storyline of a man confined to his apartment and becoming suspicious that a neighbour has murdered his wife, there are a few changes. Christopher Reeve plays the lead character, who is not a photographer but an architect, and has been pompously renamed Jason Kemp. Also the lead female role, played by Daryl Hannah, is not his girlfriend (to begin with) but his colleague. And there are some other differences here and there, such as the lack of exploration into the complexities of relationships, and the fact that Jason Kemp has two medical assistants on call 24 hours instead of an insurance nurse that visits daily. I suppose the makers deviated in these areas so that the film would not look like an exact copy of the original, but these differences do very little, and in some cases let the film down.

For a thriller, this film hardly manages to mildly scare. Jeff Bleckner's direction does not labour on key points in the film long enough to generate much tension, nor is there much atmosphere. The film's soundtrack also does not help matters. The best part of the film is Christopher Reeve, who does stand out from a cast with little substance. Thelma Ritter's character of an insurance nurse in Alfred Hitchcock's version, has more spark than the two medical assistants in this film put together. Then again, that may be largely due to the relatively shallow script that the actors have to work with.

That being said, this was a very needless remake. Not all of Alfred Hitchcock's films were classics, but when it comes to his best films, I don't believe it's possible to improve on them. Apart from this attempt, 'Psycho' has been remade, as well as multiple remakes of 'The 39 Steps'. Let's hope it stops there.

I only watched this film to the end as I wanted to see how it would end. I wish I hadn't bothered. A really disappointing finale. Reeve is fine but the script is hopeless. Why couldn't his neighbours simply have drew the curtains? Reeve's character's likeablilty goes out the window as he invades everyone's privacy. Hope he can do better than this in the future.

This movie was painful to watch! I thought I would be in for a treat when it showed up on a Saturday afternoon on the Lifetime Network. Boy, was I in for a load of crap. The dialog is the worst I've heard in a long time...even worse than most TV movies. The acting was atrocious, the camera angles were amazingly bad and, overall, there was nothing believable about the entire thing. And yeah, hey, I know Reeve is REALLY paralyzed and in a wheelchair but does that mean he should be given rave reviews because he brilliantly plays a paralyzed man? Okay, I feel for the guy...but this is a really bad movie and I'm not going to pretend it's not for sentimental reasons. Thankfully, the movie just ended. And, though I'm grateful, the ending was so off I didn't even know it was the ending....I would have begun a wave through my living room had I known! Why didn't I change the channel?..something about watching a trainwreck...what do they call it...morbid curiosity.

A paralyzed architect, who spends his time spying on his neighbours, convinces itself that one of them is a murderer. By freeing itself from the single room location, this new version of one of the Hitchcock classics lose in dramatic intensity. What remains is the emotional test of re-encountering Christopher Reeve.