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The story that inspired the Alfred Hitchcock film masterpiece Cornell Woolrich. His name represents steamy, suspenseful fiction, chilling encounters on the dark and sultry landscape of urban America in the 1930s and 1940s. Here, in this special collection, are his classic thrilers, including 'Rear Window', the story of Hal Jeffries who, trapped in his apartment because of a broken leg, takes to watching his neighbours through his rear window, and becomes certain that one of those neighbours is a murderer. Also included are such haunting, heart-stopping tales as those involving a man who finds his wife buried alive; a girl trapped with a deranged murderer who likes to knife his victims while dancing; and a woman seizing her chance to escape a sadistic husband, only to find her dream go terrifyingly wrong.… (more)
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He has been called 'The Prince of Darkness' & the inventor of the NOIR genre. He was an absolute brilliant author whose novels and shorts are simply genius. Of such as genius is his Rear Window. I am speaking, of
Our protagonist is a journalistic photographer who is laid up in his apartment with a broken leg. His apartment windows look out upon the inner courtyard of his complex and also looks in to all of the other resident's rear windows.
He has nothing to do as his leg is healing but to recline and watch the happenings going on in the other apartments and in the courtyard. As he watches the apartment across the way he notices that while the husband goes out to work each day the wife appears to be invalided within the bedroom. He never sees her rise except to talk with her husband when he returns from work each day and goes in to check on her, bring her meals, etc.
One day he notices that the husband is no longer going in to check on the wife and he no longer sees her sitting up in the bed. The husband appears to be spending his nights in the living space rather than the bedroom and he sees him there in the dark smoking, as his cigarette's red ash reflects in the dark.
His imagination begins to burn with all sorts of thoughts of what could be happening to or what has happened to the wife.
He has been called 'The Prince of Darkness' & the inventor of the NOIR genre. He was an absolute brilliant author whose novels and shorts are simply genius. Of such as genius is his Rear Window. I am speaking, of
Our protagonist is a journalistic photographer who is laid up in his apartment with a broken leg. His apartment windows look out upon the inner courtyard of his complex and also looks in to all of the other resident's rear windows.
He has nothing to do as his leg is healing but to recline and watch the happenings going on in the other apartments and in the courtyard. As he watches the apartment across the way he notices that while the husband goes out to work each day the wife appears to be invalided within the bedroom. He never sees her rise except to talk with her husband when he returns from work each day and goes in to check on her, bring her meals, etc.
One day he notices that the husband is no longer going in to check on the wife and he no longer sees her sitting up in the bed. The husband appears to be spending his nights in the living space rather than the bedroom and he sees him there in the dark smoking, as his cigarette's red ash reflects in the dark.
His imagination begins to burn with all sorts of thoughts of what could be happening to or what has happened to the wife.
In addition to adapting Rear Window for the big screen three of these stories Post-Mortem, Change of Murder, and Momentum were adapted for television by Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Post-Mortem was greatly enhanced and streamlined for its TV episode. Also, Producer of the TV series Joan Harrison previously produced a movie adaptation of Cornell Woolrich's novel Phantom Lady which is also the title of her biography by Christina Lane, Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock.
Online there is an excellent adaptation for the Suspense radio program in 1949 of Three O'Clock starring in Van Heflin in a gripping performance.