Cinema: The New Pictures, Aug. 2, 1954

Rear Window (Paramount), just possibly the second most entertaining picture (after The 39 Steps) ever made by Alfred Hitchcock, is the movie equivalent of what boxing circles call "the handkerchief trick." The trick, as Philadelphia's Tommy Loughran used to play it, is simply to plant both feet on a standard-size pocket handkerchief, fold both hands behind the back, and fight a full three-minute round against a free-moving opponent without once taking the feet off the handkerchief.

In Rear Window, Director Hitchcock plants his camera on the esthetic handkerchief of a second-floor back room in...

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