Streaming Rear Window Online

Watch free movies Rear Window (1954) Full Movie

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PG - 112 min - Mystery, Thriller - 29 January 1955
IMDb Rating : 8.6/10

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Director : Alfred Hitchcock
Writers : John Michael Hayes, Cornell Woolrich
Stars : James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter
A Deep & Entertaining Classic

One of Hitchcock's greatest masterpieces, "Rear Window" is a deep and entertaining classic with many strengths, and a little bit of everything. A fine suspense story is combined with romantic tension in the main plot, and there are numerous sub-plots, some humorous and some moving, all with many psychological overtones. The main characters are wonderfully portrayed and full of life. The apparently simple setting in an apartment complex is developed into a world filled with intriguing and sometimes unsettling possibilities, and this apparently average neighborhood comes to life with a wealth of lavish visual detail and interesting minor characters. It is the kind of film-making that (like many of Hitchcock's greatest movies) is very flattering to the viewer. The director assumes that his audience will pay close enough attention to appreciate the many subtleties with which he has filled the movie. It rewards both careful attention and repeated viewings, since there is much more here than merely a suspense plot, as good as that story is in itself.

For the first 30 minutes or so, we simply get to know the characters. Jimmy Stewart gives one of his best performances as a photographer recuperating from an injury, forced to spend several weeks staring out his apartment window at the minor dramas in the lives of his neighbors. Grace Kelly is ideal in the role of his perfect girlfriend, who can never find a way to break down Stewart's reserve. The study of their relationship would have made a good movie by itself. Almost every action and every word between them is filled with meaning, and what they see in the lives of others is an interesting reflection of the tensions and possibilities in their own present and future. Thelma Ritter is wonderful as a colorful, no-nonsense nurse who constantly sheds some light - sometimes unwanted - on what is happening between them. The action and suspense that occur later serves in large part as a catalyst that resolves some of the important issues between the two.

After we get to know the characters and their world, things start to happen, as Stewart becomes engrossed in some of the things he has seen. The ethical and moral concerns of meddling in others' affairs become intertwined with more urgent questions about what may have happened in those other apartments, and from then on the tension builds steadily. It leads up to a riveting climactic sequence filled with suspense, and made even more meaningful by our awareness of its deeper significance to the main characters.

There is much more that could be said, but you should see this for yourself. It is a classic that will be enjoyed not only by thriller fans, but by anyone who appreciates carefully crafted movies with a lot of depth.

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Streaming It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Online

Watch It's a Wonderful Life (1946) Online

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PG - 130 min - Drama, Family, Fantasy - 7 January 1947
IMDb Rating : 8.6/10

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Director : Frank Capra
Writers : Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett
Stars : James Stewart, Donna Reed, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell
A Great Influence...

No movie ever made has influenced me more than this classic. I had the honor of doing a play version of it about 5 years ago. I had seen the film thousands of times, had loved it, but I never really knew what it meant. During the course of the production, I suddenly felt alive. I felt that I wasn't having enough fun. I felt that I wasn't doing enough in my life. Crazy things, like kissing my mother or my father. I hadn't really hugged one of them in a while. It makes you think. It's more of a thinking person's film than a mere Christmas film. If you think it's just a Christmas film, I insist you watch it again and again, until you get the message.

Stewart gives the finest performance of his career, in one of the most difficult characters ever portrayed. A character all of us are familiar with...a person looking to find himself/herself. It's the great struggle for finding what it is in life you really want to do. George Bailey teaches us so lessons throughout the film and in the end he teaches us the most important lesson of all, that life, although a long and winding road, truly is (for lack of a better word) wonderful...

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Streaming Vertigo Online

Watch free movies Vertigo (1958) Full Movie

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PG - 128 min - Mystery, Romance, Thriller - 21 July 1958
IMDb Rating : 8.5/10

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Director : Alfred Hitchcock
Writers : Alec Coppel, Samuel A. Taylor
Stars : James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore
Beyond Amazing

Over the years, this film has been regarded as one of Hitchcock's masterpieces. Its been called the most personal, emotional, and complex of Hitchcock's films. I agree with all of these things except for one, this film IS Hitchcock's masterpiece work. All of the others pale in comparison to this. There are phenomenal performances here by Jimmy Stewart who plays the biggest anti-hero of his career and Kim Novak whose stunning beauty and exceptional personalities shine through this dark film. Barbara Bel Geddes provides great support as well. Everything about this film, the cinematography, the story, the depth, etc. leaves you mystified and transfixed on this dizzying, surreal artwork of a film. It truly is flawless. If you are a Hitchcock fan and haven't seen this you need to get up right now and buy, not rent, this as soon as possible!

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Streaming Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Online

Free Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Full Episode

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APPROVED - 129 min - Drama - 19 October 1939
IMDb Rating : 8.3/10

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Director : Frank Capra
Writers : Sidney Buchman, Lewis R. Foster
Stars : James Stewart, Jean Arthur, Claude Rains, Edward Arnold
Required viewing for anyone elected or appointed for public office.

Since the beginning of the art form, movies have generally fallen into two categories: the realistic, and the fantastic (fantasy-based). There are some that point out that the films of Frank Capra unduly fall into the latter, that they are completely far-fetched and fastened in their own time, and even invented a pejorative term "Capra-esque" to describe any non-cynical, heartwarming picture that has a message. His great films, like It Happened One Night, It's a Wonderful Life, and of course, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, however, are not fixed in a single era, but all eras, the truest definition of a classic. And considering it was released among true powerhouses in 1939, a year as important to movies as 1998 was to baseball, its ideals, story, and general excellence shine as bright today as it did over 60 years ago.

A Senator from an unnamed, middle America state dies and a new one must be appointed by Governor Hubert Hopper, a puppet whose strings are held by newspaper magnate Jim Taylor. They need to find one that would be easily controlled by the now-senior Senator Joseph Paine (played brilliantly by Claude Rains), so a bill allowing a building of a dam near land by the Willett Creek owned by Taylor can pass in the Senate. After his initial choice is rejected by Taylor, and Taylor's handpicked man is shot down by the public, the governor chooses Jefferson Smith, played to perfection by James Stewart, a boy scout leader and local hero who is both wholly idealistic in his patriotism for America but naive and blind to the actual process. After he gets embarrassed by the local print media, Mr. Smith begins to learn the harsh realities of DC. Paine, Smith's boyhood hero, takes him under his wing and suggests that Smith try to create a bill. Smith agrees, and with his assistant, Clarissa Saunders (played by Jean Arthur), they create a bill to create a campground for boys from all over the country to learn about each other and the civic process, much to the initial dissuasion by Saunders. Smith then wants to choose a site near the Willett Creek, the same site where the dam is to be built and when his superiors and true string-pullers find that out, major complications ensue.

Although the basic premise is David vs. Goliath, the story is wholly originally and was probably one of the earliest pictures to suggest the government as corrupt. The characters are played excellently by all principal actors, with Mr. Smith you root for whole-heartedly, Mr. Taylor you root against for his sheer arrogance and greed, and Mr. Paine, who you pity as you see a man who lost his initial zest to serve the public and is now a jaded shell of his former self. A great performance was given by Harry Carey, Sr., who plays the Vice President/President of the Senate for comic relief. The lines where completely believable and the parts of Smith's final filibuster that were shown give the most impact. There is a beautifully shot scene with images of the monuments and sights of Washington with several national anthems synchronized as the score. The climax is as tension-packed as drama can get, and while the ending may seem rather sudden, and everything isn't completely or neatly resolved, it works perfectly and ends the movie on a happy note.

Obviously, few if any people elected to public office has the moral character, conviction, and general good heartedness of Jefferson Smith, and I doubt whether the government would be better if it was. The movie showed an ideal, a supposed "lost cause" of truth in government. And although it is next to impossible for Capra and the eternal good guy Jimmy Stewart to ever fully change the world of politics with just a motion picture, at least it shows that maybe once in a great while, being the good guy has its definite rewards. If (using the same analogy of the 1998 baseball season) The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind were the Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa of 1939 moviemaking, then this would be like Cal Ripken voluntarily ending his Iron Man Streak, something done with full class and the highest respect in mind, and that elevates an ideal of being the good guy and sticking to your dedication brings the greatest of riches. This picture is flawless in all respects and a true classic, with thought-provoking ideas, wit, a little bit of platonic romance, and an excellent cinematography and score, and deserves the rank as a 10 out of 10. And in giving this rating, either I'm damn right or I'm crazy.

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Streaming Anatomy of a Murder (1959) Online

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UNRATED - 160 min - Crime, Drama, Mystery - 1 September 1959
IMDb Rating : 8.1/10

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Director : Otto Preminger
Writers : Wendell Mayes, John D. Voelker
Stars : James Stewart, Lee Remick, Ben Gazzara, Arthur O'Connell
Gray Anatomy

Anatomy Of a Murder is probably Otto Preminger's best film. It's certainly my favorite. Adapted from a novel by Robert Traver, it tells the story of a lawyer in northern Michigan and his defense of a particularly surly and violent murderer. As is always the case with Preminger, scenes are filmed mostly with all the characters present in the frame. There is no cross-cutting to speak of, which is to say the drama plays out with the assorted characters confronting one another, or at any rate with one another, and the effect is one of surprising warmth and good feeling in the movie's cosier scenes, which for once enhance rather than detract from the drama. I would have been quite happy to have spent much more time in lawyer Biegler's house and study, with its books, old furniture and broken typewriter, but alas this is a murder case so one has to get down to businss.

The question of whether the defendant, an army officer, was temporarily insane, is in fact insane, or is merely putting on a good show, is never fully resolved. The lawyer is by no means perfect. He's a little lazy, though he gets over it. One senses he's cheap. He enjoys his shabby genteel bachelor's life and isn't always responsive to the needs of his secretary, who would like to get paid more regularly. In the end he proves far more dedicated and brilliant than we might have first imagined him to be, but the fly in the buttermilk is that the better he gets the more complicated the case becomes, and the more ambiguous everything gets the more he finds out about his client and the man he killed. In this respect the movie is a masterpiece of ambiguity. Beautifully shot on location in black and white, it is more gray than anything else. Morally gray. No one is quite what he appears to be at first. And people change; or rather we learn more about them. The bartender at the resort where his boss was killed at first comes off as a jerk; in time he comes to seem more of a jerk. Then he seems maybe not so bad after all; and then he's a jerk once more, but a jerk we understand. The lawyer's assistant, an on-again, off-again recovering alcoholic, is also a mixed bag. He is dogged but sloppy, and always (or so it appears) on the verge of breakdown. Or at least this is how Arthur O'Connell plays him. The prosecuting attorney is a dolt, but he is aided by a legal bigwig the state has brought in, but this hotshot is no match for the cunning country lawyer. The defendant's wife, who 'started the whole thing' is gorgeous, sexy and provocative. She makes a play for her husband's lawyer, but he doesn't bite. One wonders about her. And one wonders about the marriage she and her hot-tempered spouse really have, and whether it will last.

This is a very sophisticated and adult movie for 1959, or for that matter today. The location filming greatly enhances the mood, chilly and very upper midwestern. Yet indoors one feels different, and the tone is often playful. The actors are superb. James Stewart is gritty, lovable, homespun, physically slow and mentally quick; and for all the familiarity there is about his screen persona, out of character, that is, in character he manages continually to surprise and delight. He was a true actor. Ben Gazzara is very Method actorish, which suits him well in his role as the volatile military man. Lee Remick is stunning as his wife, and one can well imagine a man killing for her, many times over. She is also a good actress. George C. Scott plays the state's bulldog prosecutor well, though he's an acquired taste at best. His hamminess contrasts with Stewart's folksy naturalism in interesting ways not ungermane to the plot, but he is out-acted and outclassed by the old pro he is presumably upstaging in this film.

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Streaming The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) Online

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APPROVED - 123 min - Drama, Romance, Western - 28 May 1962
IMDb Rating : 8.1/10

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Director : John Ford
Writers : James Warner Bellah, Willis Goldbeck
Stars : James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles, Lee Marvin
Ford's chamber Western

Some films are slow to give up their secrets first time round and need some time to elapse before they are revalued. An opportunity to see "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" after a gap of several years turned out to be an unexpectedly rewarding experience. It had never been one of my favourite Ford films; indeed I was always puzzled why many rate it so highly in the canon. Its rather plain black-and-white visuals smack of low production values and it has little of the grand operatic sweep of many of his other Westerns. I can now see that I was rather missing the point: "Liberty Valance" is that rare thing, a chamber Western, a quiet and elegiac reappraisal of the legends of the West made almost at the end of Ford's creative career with "Cheyenne Autumn" the only Western still to come. A U.S. senator played by James Stewart returns with his wife (Vera Miles at her most attractive) to the small Western town, where, as a young man, he tied to set up a law business, to attend the funeral of the man (John Wayne) who saved his life when he tried to rid the community of its villain, Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin). Ford's Westerns had always been the stuff of legend. Now, towards the end of his career, he began to take the legend apart. The hero is not the one who goes on to become one of the town's most illustrious sons but the quiet man who fades into the background. It needs more than idealism to overcome evil, the film seems to be saying, Brute force has to be countered by brute force; moreover, true worth is not always rewarded or recognised by society. It is a bleak message that Ford is giving us. By homing in on character and plot to a far greater extent than usual, he gives us an experience that is often more akin to filmed theatre than cinema. There are unusually long sequences in studio built interiors, the diner, the bar and a theatre where an election adoption meeting is taking place. Outdoor sequences are few and far between. Instead of a large collective enemy such as marauding Indian tribes there is just the one baddy and his pair of sycophants. The pivotal action scene where Liberty Valance receives his just deserts takes place in a dark street and has none of the climactic sense of drama to be found in such shootouts as "My Darling Clementine" of Zinnemann's "High Noon". I can at last see that those very limitations that for so so long prevented me from appreciating "Liberty Valance" give it a sense of concentration and strength that the Western rarely achieves.

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Streaming Rope Online

Streaming Rope (1948) Full Episode

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APPROVED - 80 min - Crime, Drama, Thriller - 28 August 1948
IMDb Rating : 8.0/10

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Director : Alfred Hitchcock
Writers : Hume Cronyn, Patrick Hamilton
Stars : James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Dick Hogan. Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime." />
One of Hitchcock's greatest

What an unusual Hitchcock film... such a small cast, and the whole film consists of long takes. Before seeing this, I had heard enormously positive things about it... most of them coming from my father, who hadn't seen it for about fifteen years. I had high expectations for the film, but I must say it exceeded them. Though there are only a few cuts in this film, meaning the camera is running almost non-stop, Hitchcock makes great use of it; he manages to fit in many of his trademark angles and closeups in, without it seeming forced. At one point, the camera focuses for a minute and a half on an inanimate object with only one visible character moving back and forth near it, and he manages to drench the cut in suspense, leaving even the most calm and collected of viewers at the edge of their seat, biting their nails. Only the fewest directors could make that sequence work, and luckily Hitchcock is one of them. The plot is great. It's interesting and it develops nicely. The pacing is perfect. I was never bored for a second. The acting, oh the acting... John Dall is excellent as Brandon, the intellectually superior and very smug main character. Makes me wonder why he didn't get more roles in his career. Stewart is great, as usual. The rest of the acting is very good as well. The characters are well-written and credible. For such an unusual film, and despite the heavy feeling of watching a stage play rather than a film, it's very entertaining and effective. If for nothing else, watch this to enjoy Dall as the cold, calculating and manipulative psychopath. I recommend this to fans of Hitchcock and Stewart. 8/10

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