Show The Trailer First, Then The Movie

Last week (November 10), I saw Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 thriller, Rear Window, at Film Forum, the repertory theatre in Lower Manhattan. I've seen the movie many times on videocassette and DVD, probably on broadcast TV, too. But never on the big screen. It is one of the movies I never get tired of watching. As I sat there, I was trying to imagine what it must have been like in 1954 seeing Rear Window for the first time with an audience.

One thing I wish the programmer at Film Forum had thought to do was have the movie's trailer precede the screening to heighten the audience's anticipation.

Incidentally, my friend Velma's former Morningside Heights apartment resembles the James Stewart character's apartment. I could look across the courtyard and see through the windows of the neighboring apartments. Whenever I visited her, Rear Window would come to mind.

What Is Pure Cinema?

"Pure cinema for [Alfred] Hitchcock meant communicating through pictures. Give the audience something that only the movies can give you. You can get words from radio and books. You can get music from records and CDs and orchestras. You can get all those things somewhere else. But only the movies can give you moving pictures."--David Sterritt, film critic, from "Pure Cinema: Through the Eyes of the Master," a bonus feature on Rear Window (1954) DVD.