Newsday from New York, New York • 91

asEUMins Reopening the 'Rear Window' By Joseph Gelmis fTpHE FIRST SHOW to sell I I out when tickets for the -Li- recent New York Film Festival went on sale was the revival of a 30-year-old movie, "Rear Window." The movie subsequently opened at several Manhattan theaters and has become one of the hottest tickets in town. "Rear Window" works as well today as it did when Alfred Hitchcock made it in 1954. Since none of his legion of imitators can match the master's touch, "Rear Window" is a cultural reference point against which to recalibrate our critical standards. A disturbing combination of misanthropic humor, suspense, voyeurism and murder, "Rear Window" pairs two of Hitchcock's favorite players. James Stewart is Jeff, a professional Peeping Tom, an amoral photographer recuperating with a broken leg, spying on his neighbors.

Grace Kelly is Lisa, a spunky woman of fashion who wants to marry Jeff. Hitchcock's storytelling is economical. Dawn in Greenwich Village, the camera pans around a courtyard, miniature garden plots flanked by walkup apartments. We glimpse a milkman on his rounds. We see Jimmy Stewart sleeping in a wheelchair by his rear window, perspiration beaded on his forehead, an outdoor thermometer nearby already red-lining 94 degrees.

We get a tour of the sleeper's tiny apartment, the vantage from which we will spend nearly two hours peering at and spying on the neighbors in their cubicles. But, first, Hitchcock tells us with poetic images who the sleeper is: action photographs on the walls, his camera equipment, and, finally, the leg in a cast Without a word having been uttered, we've been introduced to a news magazine photographer convalescing from an auto raceway accident Soon well know he's bored, has a week to go before the cast is removed, is under pressure from his woman to marry, and has a sour opinion of marriage and of human nature in general. His body immobilised, he prys into other people's lives, vicariously, like a moviegoer, like a TV-watcher switching channels. With his binoculars or through bis 35-mm. camera zoom lens, he monitors a dozen shows in as many lighted windows.

The people he watches are strangers, neighbors in name only. The Torso, a blonde chorus girl, gyrates through her daily chorea, parties with older men to further her career. In the apartment of a pianist who spends the movie laboring to compose and sell a pop song, Hitchcock makes his signature appearance. A sculptress molds an abstract statue. A middle-aged romantic whom Stewart calls Miss Lone-lyhearts elaborately sets her dinner ftw imaginary gwntlortiMTi rmWm A couple, childless, pamper a lap dog as if it were a baby.

An invalid wife nags and humiliates her husband, a rtTfltumi jewelry salesman, unwittingly fr'ggfag her own grave in the pFOCQM What Stewart sees is, in effect, who he is; what fascinates him most is a distorted reflection of whafi on his mind. He ignores an innocuous happy family. He dwells on the characters whose work or love life make them unhappy. The battle of the sexes is played out by various singles and couples. Before she makes her entrance, we realise that Grace Kelly's Lisa is weighing on the hero's mind as much as his impatience to get back to work is.

Thelma Ritter, as a nurse who makes daily visits, is a marvelous kibitzer. She clucks disapproval of her patient's sleeping in his wheelchair and spying. And she champions Kelly, advising Stewart to marry her. But Stewart protests that Kelly is too perfect The dialogue is brisk. Ritter "You've got a hormone deficiency." Stewart: "How can you tell that from a thermometer?" Ritter "Those bathing beauties you've been watching.

They havent raised your temperature one degree in a month." Typical of Hitchcock's way with conflicting emotions, Grace Kelly's first entrance is as an ominous shadow creeping over the sleeping Stewart's face. It suggests a predator. In a close-up, however, she's a 1960s image of elegant beauty. The descent of her head filmed disquietingly in the film's only slow motion sequence is diabolically vampiriah until the moment when her lips touch his her scenes with the unresponsive Continued on next page CO Thelma Ritter and James Stewart in Hitchcock's 'Rear Window' SHORT 3 anything other than to Timi the results of a film that MGMUA financed." In federal court in Los Angeles, meanwhile, Warner Bros, is involved in a discrimination lawsuit filed by the Directors Guild of America. The guild is charging the studio with race and sex discrimination in hiring.

In a reply submitted to the court, Warner Bros, contends that the "apparent low number" of working women and minority directors, assistant directors and unit production managers "is the result of restrictive practices by the guild itself" Warner Bros, claims that the guild controls hiring, directly and indirectly. The bucks Bond brings Sean Connery's return as James Bond in "Never Say Never Again," after a 12-year absence, set a box-office record. Warner Bros, reports that "Never Say Never Again" topped all previous 007 movie opening weekends and became the highest-grossing movie ever to premiere during a fall season. The movie, according to its distributor, grossed $9.7 million at 1,500 theaters in its opening weekend. Free fllnus at Kings Point The UJS.

Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point will present a free film series, to be shown at 8 PM in Bowditch Auditorium: "The African Queen" (tomorrow), "The Grapes of Wrath" (Oct 24), "Citizen Kane" (Nov. 7), "Casablanca" (Nov. 14), "The Reivers" (Nov. 28), "MASH" (Dec 5) and George Lucas' serious sci-fi film, THX-1138" (Dec. 12).

For further information, call 482-8200, ext 419. Two major lawsuits have been filed against Hollywood studios. Blake Edwards is suing MGMUA Entertainment Corp. for $180 million in damages in Los Angeles Superior Court. Edwards, who made most of the "Fink Panther" movies, charges that the studio "conspired frustrate and prevent" the bos office success of "Curse of the Pink Panther." Edwards claims that the studio reneged on its promised to spend at least $3.5 million advertising the film this summer.

Edwards also contends MGMUA, without consulting his company, withdrew "Curse of the Pink Panther" from theaters in some areas and added another movie as a double bill in other areas. Studio boss Frank Rothman has replied that "it is ludicrous, on its face, to assume that MGMUA would do 7 The "continued" line was omitted from the page 13 portion of a abort story in The Nowaday Magazine today. The story, The Aviarian," continues on page 43 of the magazine..