Rear Window / Shadow of a Doubt

REAR WINDOW, 1954, Universal, 112 min. Hitchcock adapts Cornell Woolrich's short story of a photographer (James Stewart) laid up with a broken leg, who resorts to spying on his tenement neighbors through a telephoto lens. Has the ailing wife of a neighbor (Raymond Burr) suddenly taken an abrupt trip. Or? Co-starring Grace Kelly.

SHADOW OF A DOUBT, 1943, Universal, 108 min. What starts out as a charming portrait of idyllic small-town life gradually darkens into one of director Alfred Hitchcock's most devastating thrillers. Teenager Teresa Wright's romantic illusions about her beloved Uncle Charlie (Joseph Cotten) are shattered by the suspicion he may be the diabolic Merry Widow serial killer. A rewardingly rich tapestry of eccentric characters, (Henry Travers, Hume Cronyn, Patricia Collinge are stand-outs in the cast).