L.B. Jeffries quotes from Rear Window (1954)

You've got to get me out of here. Six weeks sitting in a two-room apartment with nothing to do but look out the window at the neighbors. ..If you don't pull me out of this swamp of boredom, I'm gonna do something drastic...like what? I'm gonna get married and then I'll never be able to go anywhere.

It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome, bitter old man.

Yeah, can't you just see me, rushin' home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal, the nagging wife.

Jeff, wives don't nag, they discuss.

Is that so, that so? Maybe in the high rent district they discuss, in my neighborhood they still nag.

Well, um, you know best.

Stella

I was nursing a director of General Motors ... When General Motors has to go to the bathroom 10 times a day, the whole country's ready to let go.

In economics, a kidney ailment has nothing whatsoever to do with the stock market.

Stella

You've got a hormone deficiency.

How can you tell from a thermometer ?

Stella

Those bathing beauties you've been watching haven't raised your temperature one degree in a month.

Stella

I got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin' out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. I can see you in court now, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers in double-breasted suits. You're pleading: 'Judge, it was only a little bit of innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father.' And the Judge says, 'Well, congratulations, you've just given birth to three years in...'

Yeah, right now I'd welcome trouble...You know, I think you're right. I think there is going to be trouble around here.

Stella

...What kind of trouble?

Lisa Fremont.

Stella

Are you kidding? She's a beautiful young girl and you're a reasonably healthy young man.

She expects me to marry her.

Stella

That's normal.

I don't want to.

Stella

That's abnormal.

I'm just not ready for marriage.

Stella

Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along. And Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain who can get one eye open.

Oh, she's all right.

Stella

What did you do? Have a fight?

No.

Stella

Her father loading up the shotgun?

What? Please, Stella.

Stella

It's happened before you know. Some of the world's happiest marriages have, uh, started under the gun, as you might say.

No, she's just not the girl for me.

Stella

Yeah, she's only perfect.

She's too perfect. She's too talented, she's too beautiful. She's too sophisticated. She's too everything but what I want.

Stella

Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?

Well, it's very simple, Stella. She belongs to that rarified atmosphere of Park Avenue, you know. Expensive restaurants, literary cocktail parties...Can you imagine her tramping around the world with a camera bum who never has more than a week's salary in the bank? If she was only ordinary.

Stella

You ever gonna get married?

I'll probably get married one of these days, and when I do, it's gonna be to someone who thinks of life not just as a new dress, and a lobster dinner, the latest scandal. I need a woman who's willing...to go anywhere and do anything and love it. So the honest thing for me to do is just to call the whole thing off and let her find somebody else.

Stella

Yeah, I can hear you now. Get out of my life. You're a perfectly wonderful woman - you're too good for me. Look, Mr. Jefferies, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and a woman see each other and like each other, they ought to come together - wham! Like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.

There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.

Stella

Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence. Hah! Modern marriage!

Now, we've progressed emotionally.

Stella

Baloney! Once, it was see somebody, get excited, get married. Now, it's read a lot of books, fence with a lot of four-syllable words, psychoanalyze each other until you can't tell the difference between a petting party and a civil service exam.

People have different emotional levels.

Stella

When I married Miles, we were both a couple of maladjusted misfits. We are still maladjusted misfits, and we have loved every minute of it.

Well, that's fine, Stella. Now would you fix me a sandwich please?

Stella

Yes, I will. And I'll spread a little common sense on the bread. Lisa's loaded to her fingertips with love for you - I got two words of advice for you - Marry her!

Did she pay you much?

Lisa

Reading from top to bottom: [She turns on one lamp light.] Lisa. [She turns on a second lamp.] Carol. [She turns on a third lamp.] Fremont.

Is this the Lisa Fremont who never wears the same dress twice?

Lisa

Only because it's expected of her. It's right off the Paris plane. You think it will sell?...A steal at $1,100 dollars.

Eleven hundred? They ought to list that dress on the Stock Exchange.

Lisa

Someday you may want to open up a studio of your own here.

How would I run it, from say, Pakistan?

Lisa

Jeff, isn't it time you came home? You could pick your assignment.

Well, I wish there was one I wanted.

Lisa

Make the one you want.

You mean leave the magazine?

Lisa

Yes.

For what?

Lisa

For yourself and me. I could get you a dozen assignments tomorrow - fashions, portraits. Well now, don't laugh, I could do it.

That's what I'm afraid of. Can you see me driving down to the fashion salon in a jeep wearing combat boots and a three-day beard? Will that make a hit?

Lisa

I could see you looking very handsome and successful in a dark blue flannel suit.

Let's stop talking nonsense, shall we, hmm?

'Miss Lonelyhearts.' Well, at least that's something you'll never have to worry about.

Lisa

Oh? You can see my apartment from here, all the way up on 63rd Street?

No, not exactly...but we have a little apartment here that's probably about as popular as yours. You remember of course 'Miss Torso,' the ballet dancer. She's like a Queen Bee with her pick of the drones.

Lisa

I'd say she's doing a woman's hardest job - Juggling Wolves.

She picked the most prosperous-looking one.

Lisa

She's not in love with him or any of them.

How can you tell that from here?

Lisa

You said it resembled my apartment, didn't you?

Lisa

It's enchanting. It's almost as if it were being written especially for us.

No wonder he's having so much trouble with it.

Lisa

At least you can't say the dinner isn't right.

Lisa, it's perfect, as always.

Lisa

If you're saying all this because you don't want to tell me the truth, because you're hiding something from me, then maybe I can understand.

I'm not hiding anything! It's just that...

Lisa

It doesn't make sense! What's so different about it here from over there, or any place you go, that one person couldn't live in both places just as easily?

Some people can. Now if you'll just let me explain...

Lisa

What is it but traveling from one place to another taking pictures? It's just like being a tourist on an endless vacation.

OK. Now that's your opinion. You're entitled to it. Now let me give you my side...

Lisa

It's ridiculous to say that it can only be done by a special, private little group of annointed people...

I made a simple statement, a true statement, but I can back it up if you'll just shut up for a minute!

Lisa

If your opinion is as rude as your manner, I don't think I care to hear it.

Oh, come on now, simmer down.

Lisa

You - I can't fit in here - you can't fit in there. I mean, according to you, people should be born, live and die on the same spot.

SHUT UP! Did you ever eat fish heads in rice?

Lisa

Of course not.

Well, you might have to if you went with me. Did you ever try to keep warm on a C-54 at 15,000 feet, 20 degrees below zero?

Lisa

Oh, I do it all the time. Whenever I have a few minutes after lunch.

Did you ever get shot at? Did you ever get run over? Did you ever get sandbagged at night because somebody got unfavorable publicity from your camera? Did you ever...those high-heels, they'll be great in the jungle and the nylons and those six ounce lingerie...

Lisa

Three!

All right. Three! They'll make a big hit in Finland just before you freeze to death?

Lisa

Well, if there's one thing I know, it's how to wear the proper clothes.

Yeah, yeah. Well try and find a raincoat in Brazil, even when it isn't raining. Lisa. In this job, you carry one suitcase, your home is the available transportation. You don't sleep very much, you bathe less, and sometimes the food that you eat is made from things that you couldn't even look at when they're alive.

Lisa

Jeff, you don't have to be deliberately repulsive just to impress me I'm wrong.

Deliberately repulsive! I'm just trying to make it sound good. You just have to face it, Lisa, you're not meant for that kind of a life. Few people are.

Lisa

You're too stubborn to argue with.

I'm not stubborn - I'm just truthful.

Lisa

I know, a lesser man would have told me it was one long holiday - and I would have been awakened to a rude disillusionment.

Oh, well now, wait a minute. Now wait a minute. If you want to get vicious on this, I'll be very happy to accommodate you.

Lisa

No, I don't particularly want that. [She rises and moves away.] So that's it. You won't stay here and I can't go with you.

It would be the wrong thing.

Lisa

You don't think either one of us could ever change?

Right now, it doesn't seem so.

Lisa

I'm in love with you. I don't care what you do for a living. I'd just like to be part of it somehow. It's deflating to find out the only way I can be part of it is to take out a subscription to your magazine. I guess I'm not the girl I thought I was.

There's nothing wrong with you, Lisa. You've got this town in the palm of your hand.

Lisa

Not quite it seems. Goodbye, Jeff.

You mean, 'Good night.'

Lisa

I mean what I said.

Well, Lisa, couldn't we just, uh, couldn't we just keep things status quo?

Lisa

Without any future?

Well, when am I gonna see you again?

Lisa

Not for a long time...at least not until tomorrow night.

Lisa

Where does a girl have to go before you notice her ?

Well if she's pretty enough, she doesn't have to go anywhere. She just has to be.

Lisa

Well, ain't I? Pay attention to me.

Well, I'm, I'm not exactly on the other side of the room.

Lisa

Your mind is. When I want a man, I want all of you.

Don't, don't you ever have any problems?

Lisa

I have one now.

So do I.

Lisa

Tell me about it.

Why, why would a man leave his apartment three times on a rainy night with a suitcase and come back three times?

Lisa

He likes the way his wife welcomes him home.

Oh no. No, no, no. Not this salesman's wife. And why didn't he go to work today?

Lisa

Homework. It's more interesting.

What's interesting about a butcher knife and a small saw wrapped in newspaper? Huh?

Lisa

Nothing, thank heaven.

Why hasn't he been in his wife's bedroom all day?

Lisa

I wouldn't dare answer that.

Well, listen. I'll answer it, Lisa, there's something terribly wrong.

Lisa

And I'm afraid it's with me.

What do you think?

Lisa

Something too frightful to utter.

He went out a few minutes ago in his undershirt. He hasn't come back yet. That would be a terrible job to tackle. Just how would you start to cut up a human body?

Lisa

Jeff, I'll be honest with you. You're beginning to scare me a little.

Lisa

Jeff, if you could only see yourself!

Whatsa matter?

Lisa

Sitting around looking out of the window to kill time is one thing but doing it the way you are with binoculars and wild opinions about every little thing you see is, is diseased!

What do you think I consider it - recreation?

Lisa

I don't know what you consider it, but if you don't stop it, I'm getting out of here...What is it you're looking for?

I've seen it through that window. I've seen bickering and family quarrels and mysterious trips at night, knives and saws and ropes, and now since last evening, not a sign of the wife. All right, now you tell me where she is...

Lisa

Maybe he's leaving his wife, I don't know, I don't care. Lots of people have knives and saws and ropes around their houses and lots of men don't speak to their wives all day. Lots of wives nag and men hate them and trouble starts. But very very few of them end up in murder if that's what you're thinking.

It's pretty hard for you to keep away from that word isn't it?

Lisa

You could see all that he did, couldn't you?

Of course, I...

Lisa

You could see because the shades were up and, and he walked along the corridor and the street and the back yard. Oh Jeff, do you think a murderer would let you see all that? That he wouldn't pull the shades down and hide behind them?

Just where he's being clever. He's being nonchalant about things...

Lisa

Oh, and that's where you're not being clever. A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.

Why not?

Lisa

Why, for all you know, there's probably something a lot more sinister going on behind those windows.

Where? Oh, no comment.

Didn't see the killing or the body. How do you know there was a murder?

Because everything this fella's done has been suspicious. Trips at night in the rain, and knives and saws and trunks with rope, and now this wife that isn't there anymore.

I admit it all has a mysterious sound. Could be any number of things - murder's the least possible.

Well, don't tell me he's an unemployed magician amusing the neighborhood with his sleight-of-hand. Now don't tell me that.

It's too obvious, a stupid way to commit murder in full view of fifty windows? Then sit over there smoking a cigar, waiting for the police to come and pick him up?

Officer, go do your duty. Go pick him up!

Jeff, you've got a lot to learn about homicide. Why, morons have committed murder so shrewdly it's taken a hundred trained police minds to catch them. That salesman wouldn't just knock his wife off after dinner and toss her in the trunk and put her in storage.

I'll bet it's been done.

Most everything's been done - under PANIC. This is a thousand to one shot. He's still sitting around the apartment. That man's not panicked.

You think I made all this up, huh?

What do you need? Bloody footsteps leading up to the door?

One thing I don't need is heckling.

Lisa

It doesn't make sense to me...Women aren't that unpredictable...A woman has a favorite handbag and it always hangs on her bedpost where she can get at it easily. And then all of a sudden, she goes away on a trip and leaves it behind. Why?

Because she didn't know she was going on a trip. And where she's going she wouldn't need the handbag.

Lisa

Yes, but only her husband would know that. And that jewelry. Women don't keep their jewelry in a purse, getting all twisted and scratched and tangled up.

Well, do they hide it in their husbands' clothes?

Lisa

They do not. And they don't leave it behind either. Why, a woman going anywhere but the hospital would always take makeup, perfume, and jewelry...That's basic equipment. And you don't leave it behind in your husband's drawer in your favorite handbag.

Lisa

We have all night...I'm going to stay with you.

Well, you'll have to clear that with my landlord.

Lisa

I have the whole weekend off.

Well, that's very nice, but I just have one bed.

Lisa

If you say anything else, I'll stay tomorrow night, too.

I won't be able to give you any pajamas.
...

Lisa

You said I'll have to live out of one suitcase. I'll bet yours isn't this small?

This is a suitcase?

Lisa

Well, a Mark Cross overnight case anyway. Compact, but, uh, ample enough. [She pulls her frilly lingerie from inside.]]

Looks like you packed in a hurry. Look at this. Isn't that amazing?

Lisa

I'll trade you. My feminine intuition for a bed for the night.

I'll go along with that.

Lisa

Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that? It's utterly beautiful. Wish I could be creative.

Oh sweetie, you are. You have a great talent for creating difficult situations.

Lisa

I do?

Sure. Staying here all night, uninvited.

Lisa

Surprise is the most important element of attack. And besides, you're not up on your private eye literature. When they're in trouble, it's always their Girl Friday who gets them out of it.

Well, is she the girl that saves him from the clutches of the seductive showgirls and the overpassionate daughters of the rich?

Lisa

The same.

That's the one, huh? It's funny, he never ends up marrying her, does he, huh? That's strange.

Lisa

Weird. Why don't I slip into something more comfortable?

By all means.

Lisa

I mean, like the kitchen and make us some coffee.

Oh, with some brandy too, huh?

Lars Thorwald is no more a murderer than I am.

You mean to say you can explain everything that's gone on over there and is still going on?

No, and neither can you. That's a secret, private world you're looking into out there. People do a lot of things in private that they couldn't possibly explain in public.

Lisa

Like disposing of their wives.

Get that idea out of your mind. It will only lead in the wrong direction.

What about the knife and the saw?

Did you ever own a saw?

At home in the garage, I had...

How many people did you cut up with it? Or with the couple of hundred knives you probably owned in your life? Your logic is backward.

Lisa

You can't ignore the wife disappearing and the trunk and the jewelry.

I checked the railroad station. He bought a ticket. Ten minutes later, he put his wife on the train. Destination? Meritsville. The witnesses are that deep.

Lisa

That might have been a woman, but it couldn't have been Mrs. Thorwald. That jewelry...

Look, Miss Fremont. That uh, feminine intuition stuff sells magazines but in real life, it's still a fairy tale. I don't know how many wasted years I've spent tracking down leads based on female intuition.

You know, much as I hate to give Thomas J. Doyle too much credit, he might have gotten ahold of something when he said that was pretty private stuff going on out there. I wonder if it is ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens. Do you, do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime?

Lisa

I'm not much on rear-window ethics.

Of course, they can do the same thing to me. Watch me like a bug under a glass if they want to.

Lisa

Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see.

What?

Lisa

You and me with long faces, plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known. You'd think we could be a little bit happier that the poor woman is alive and well. Whatever happened to that old saying: 'Love thy neighbor'?

You know, I think I'll start reviving that tomorrow. I'll begin with 'Miss Torso.'

Lisa

Not if I have to move in to an apartment across the way and do the Dance of the Seven Veils every hour. [She lowers the blinds] The show's over for tonight. [She picks up her overnight kit of lingerie] Preview of coming attractions.

Lisa

What do you think? [Jeff is speechless.] I will rephrase the question.

Thank you.

Lisa

Do you like it?

Yes, I like it.

All those trips at night with that metal suitcase. He wasn't taking out his possessions, because his possessions were still up in the apartment...in sections, and I'll tell you something else. All the telephone calls he made were long-distance. All right, now if he called his wife long-distance on the day she left, after she arrived in Meritsville, why did she write a card to him saying that she'd arrived in Meritsville? Why did she do that?

I'll run it down. And we'll get Lisa out...

What do you want from me? Your friend, the girl, could have turned me in. Why didn't she? What is it you want? A lot of money? I don't have any money. Say something. Say something. Tell me what you want! Can you get me that ring back?

No!

Tell her to bring it back.

I can't. The police have it by now.

Stella

I got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin' out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. I can see you in court now, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers in double-breasted suits. You're pleading: 'Judge, it was only a little bit of innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father.' And the Judge says, 'Well, congratulations, you've just given birth to three years in Dannemora.'

Yeah, right now I'd welcome trouble...You know, I think you're right. I think there is going to be trouble around here.

Stella

...What kind of trouble?

Lisa Fremont.

Stella

Are you kidding? She's a beautiful young girl and you're a reasonably healthy young man.

She expects me to marry her.

Stella

That's normal.

I don't want to.

Stella

That's abnormal.

I'm just not ready for marriage.

Stella

Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along. And Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain who can get one eye open.

Oh, she's all right.

Stella

What did you do? Have a fight?

No.

Stella

Her father loading up the shotgun?

What? Please, Stella.

Stella

It's happened before you know. Some of the world's happiest marriages have, uh, started under the gun, as you might say.

No, she's just not the girl for me.

Stella

Yeah, she's only perfect.

She's too perfect. She's too talented, she's too beautiful. She's too sophisticated. She's too everything but what I want.

Stella

Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?

Well, it's very simple, Stella. She belongs to that rarified atmosphere of Park Avenue, you know. Expensive restaurants, literary cocktail parties...Can you imagine her tramping around the world with a camera bum who never has more than a week's salary in the bank? If she was only ordinary.

Stella

You ever gonna get married?

I'll probably get married one of these days, and when I do, it's gonna be to someone who thinks of life not just as a new dress, and a lobster dinner, the latest scandal. I need a woman who's willing...to go anywhere and do anything and love it. So the honest thing for me to do is just to call the whole thing off and let her find somebody else.

Stella

Yeah, I can hear you now. Get out of my life. You're a perfectly wonderful woman - you're too good for me. Look, Mr. Jefferies, I'm not an educated woman, but I can tell you one thing. When a man and a woman see each other and like each other they ought to come together - wham! Like a couple of taxis on Broadway, not sit around analyzing each other like two specimens in a bottle.

There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.

Stella

Intelligence! Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence. Hah! Modern marriage!

Lisa

What's he doing? Cleaning house?

He's washing and scrubbing down the bathroom walls.

Stella

Must've splattered a lot.

Stella

Come on, that's what were all thinkin'. He killed her in there, now he has to clean up those stains before he leaves.

Lisa

Stella... your choice of words!

Stella

Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killin' yet.