It might have been purposeful, that our look into this world of Jeff's is just as sketchy as his glimpse into the world of his neighbors, but still, what Hitchcock later brought to this story was depth. There's not much time for character development and therefore there is no real connection to the characters. It's very hard to find the suspense in a forty page short story. Can Jeff save himself from Thorwald and prove to Boyne that it had to be murder all along? But Jeff sees Thorwald leave for the assignation with a gun and he realizes that not only has this man killed once, but he's willing to kill again to cover up his first crime. He sends an anonymous note saying he knew what he did, followed with a phone call arranging a time and a place for the "exchange." Jeff thinking that if Thorwald is willing to pay a blackmailer then it's a sure sign of his guilt. Jeff decides that perhaps Lars can be baited into confessing. He sends his manservant Sam over their to investigate this Lars Thorwald. But after a perfunctory check, it turns out the wife left town for her health and that's the end of that. There was no time that the wife could have left without him seeing so it has to be murder. When Jeff realizes that the wife is no longer in residence he calls his friend Boyne who works homicide. Soon little things start to pile up, curtains drawn, the man sleeping in the living room but never really succumbing to dreams, his glowing cigarette a reminder of his wakefulness. He surveys the surrounding apartments not in the detached way of one under strain but in the highly observant way of a man who has something to hid from those around him. One night the husband's behaviour strikes him as odd. But then again, those people and their worries are all he's got. But why he keeps her shut up in that hot apartment while the building is under construction and never calls a doctor worries Jeff. The devoted husband who waits on his ill wife. The young mother who tarts herself up every night after tucking her son into bed. The young newlyweds who stay out every night who always forget to turn out the light and come rushing back five minutes later to turn it off. He becomes fascinated with their routines. So when he's laid up in his swelteringly small apartment he doesn't have the solace of books to turn to, instead he turns to his window and the lives of his neighbors. Hal Jeffries has never been one for reading. Rating: ★★ ( Rear Window aka It Had to Be Murder only) Rear Window and Other Stories by Cornell Woolrich The Guild Season 4 Episode 3: Oversupportive'd.Book Review - Boileau & Narcejac's Vertigo.The Guild Season 4 Episode 4: Moving On.Book Review - Daphne Du Maurier's Jamaica Inn.The Guild Season 4 Episode 5: Loot Envy.
Book Review - Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds.The Guild Season 4 Episode 6: Weird Respawn.Book Review - Cornell Woolrich's It Had to Be Murder.The Guild Season 4 Episode 7: Awkward Bithday.
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