The Bedroom Window

Rating:
Summary: A surprisingly nifty little thriller!
Review: I first saw this movie with the lowest of expectations, and boy was I surprised! Steve Guttenburg is surprisingly (there's that word again!) well cast as an ordinary Joe Schmo caught up in a series of increasingly tangled events brought on by an attempted murder which takes place outside of his bedroom window. Isabelle Huppert and Elizabeth McGovern are enjoyable as well in two very different femme fatale roles. I know that people like to compare this movie to Hitchcock films, but frankly, who cares? It's the old apples and oranges analogy. The Bedroom Window is a slick, enjoyable thriller worth looking for!

Rating:
Summary: A TENSE-FILLED SUSPENSEFUL THRILLER!!!!!!!
Review: I must say that this movie was very good and intelligently written. It does a great job at keeping you guessing what will happen next!!! It has an atmospheric style to it and it delivers the goods!
If you haven't seen this movie, please do!!!
This film was originally released in 1987 and it still holds it's own today!!!!
This movie was exceptional and I am glad that I came across it!!!!
In the style of Alfred Hitchcock, Director/Writer Curtis Hanson has given us this film classic!!!
This is great entertainment that is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat!!!

Rating:
Summary: Counterfeit Hitchcock
Review: Start with a shaky premiss, add some unlikely plot twists, some suspense, and a whole bunch of stupidity and what do you have? You have counterfeit Hitchcock. Well, at least the title is close, although The Bedroom Window (1987) is not anything near as interesting as, say, Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

I particularly did not like the far-fetched scheme that Terry and Denise came up with at the end to entrap the psycho. And Terry's insistence on that phone booth and only that phone booth from which to call the cops was silly and unnecessary. And his snatching of the police car, ditto.

Not to belabor the stupidities, but when only the defense attorney knows that Lambert wears contacts-not the prosecution, not Sylvia, apparently not himself, and certainly the audience wasn't clued in-then you've got Hitchcock rolling over in his grave as this very important bit of plot knowledge is exposed at the last moment. Director Curtis Hanson should know better. I hope he really did plant the contact lenses somewhere early on as Hitchcock would have, and I just missed them.

Worse offense though was making it appear that Terry wasn't attracted to Denise, even though she was throwing herself at him. Shame on you, Curtis Hanson. Hitchcock would never do that. Not only don't you resolve your subplot, you offend those in your audience who identified with your heroine.

Nonetheless this is not a bad movie. Steve Guttenberg, while no James Stewart (or Cary Grant, for that matter) is agreeable as Terry Lambert, a kind of benign ladies man who seduces his boss's wife, Sylvia, played by the delicate French beauty, Isabelle Huppert. He learns that she was the wrong girl. The right girl is of course Elizabeth McGovern (Denise) although I would prefer it the other way around.

Rating:
Summary: Counterfeit Hitchcock
Review: Start with a shaky premiss, add some unlikely plot twists, some suspense, and a whole bunch of stupidity and what do you have? You have counterfeit Hitchcock. Well, at least the title is close, although The Bedroom Window (1987) is not anything near as interesting as, say, Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954).

I particularly did not like the far-fetched scheme that Terry and Denise came up with at the end to entrap the psycho. And Terry's insistence on that phone booth and only that phone booth from which to call the cops was silly and unnecessary. And his snatching of the police car, ditto.

Not to belabor the stupidities, but when only the defense attorney knows that Lambert wears contacts-not the prosecution, not Sylvia, apparently not himself, and certainly the audience wasn't clued in-then you've got Hitchcock rolling over in his grave as this very important bit of plot knowledge is exposed at the last moment. Director Curtis Hanson should know better. I hope he really did plant the contact lenses somewhere early on as Hitchcock would have, and I just missed them.

Worse offense though was making it appear that Terry wasn't attracted to Denise, even though she was throwing herself at him. Shame on you, Curtis Hanson. Hitchcock would never do that. Not only don't you resolve your subplot, you offend those in your audience who identified with your heroine.

Nonetheless this is not a bad movie. Steve Guttenberg, while no James Stewart (or Cary Grant, for that matter) is agreeable as Terry Lambert, a kind of benign ladies man who seduces his boss's wife, Sylvia, played by the delicate French beauty, Isabelle Huppert. He learns that she was the wrong girl. The right girl is of course Elizabeth McGovern (Denise) although I would prefer it the other way around.

Rating:
Summary: Very watchable...even after a handul of viewings.
Review: This video is a part of my collection, and even though Steve Guttenberg is, as they say, no Jimmy Stewart, there is something about him that is very appealing. You will find this movie to have just the right amount of suspense (and romance) to keep you interested and there are a couple of great supporting actors: Paul Shenar in particular and Wallace Shawn who is a hoot as the defense attorney. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Very watchable...even after a handul of viewings.
Review: This video is a part of my collection, and even though Steve Guttenberg is, as they say, no Jimmy Stewart, there is something about him that is very appealing. You will find this movie to have just the right amount of suspense (and romance) to keep you interested and there are a couple of great supporting actors: Paul Shenar in particular and Wallace Shawn who is a hoot as the defense attorney. Enjoy!

Rating:
Summary: Not in the same league as Hitchcock
Review: This weak and contrived film is a very pale imitation of Hitchcock. It actually begins in a very promising way-Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) is having an affair with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). She witnesses an attack on a woman (Elizabeth McGovern) outside Terry's bedroom window, but he agrees to report it to the police as if he saw it so that their relationship will remain secret. His story (and the film's) begins to fall apart until eventually he is on the run for crimes he didn't commit.

With "L.A. Confidential," writer/director Curtis Hanson would later show that he is capable of crafting top-flight film fare, but he just doesn't make it here. The script is too far-fetched and the character's actions become increasingly implausible until the over-wrought, unconvincing conclusion. The decidedly low wattage of stars Guttenberg and McGovern doesn't help either.

Rating:
Summary: Not in the same league as Hitchcock
Review: This weak and contrived film is a very pale imitation of Hitchcock. It actually begins in a very promising way-Terry Lambert (Steve Guttenberg) is having an affair with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). She witnesses an attack on a woman (Elizabeth McGovern) outside Terry's bedroom window, but he agrees to report it to the police as if he saw it so that their relationship will remain secret. His story (and the film's) begins to fall apart until eventually he is on the run for crimes he didn't commit.

With "L.A. Confidential," writer/director Curtis Hanson would later show that he is capable of crafting top-flight film fare, but he just doesn't make it here. The script is too far-fetched and the character's actions become increasingly implausible until the over-wrought, unconvincing conclusion. The decidedly low wattage of stars Guttenberg and McGovern doesn't help either.

Rating:
Summary: Master trumped by apprentice.
Review: This will probably be the only movie starring Steve Guttenberg that I'll give 5 stars to, so listen up. OK, that was a little harsh. Actually, Steve's tolerable here. He plays a yuppie who commences an affair with his boss's wife (Isabelle Huppert). While a yuppie probably isn't out of his range, French beauty Isabelle Huppert IS . . . but then, in Hitch's *Rear Window*, Grace Kelly was way out of Jimmy Stewart's league. Guttenberg, over and beyond his short-lived bankability in the mid-80's, was clearly a deliberate casting choice by director Curtis Hanson: he's a perfect Everyday Shmo that we can "identify" with, like Stewart's rubes used to be (before the country stopped being so corny). *The Bedroom Window* imitates Hitchcock in more ways than merely casting and the title. It "homages" the Master in the best way: by fashioning an exceedingly clever plot that compares favorably, in many cases MORE favorably, quite frankly, with Hitchock's narrative contrivances. The plot strands get SO involved that it's hardly worth trying to recount them; it's easier to just recommend the movie. *The Bedroom Window* is nothing less than a formally perfect imitation of elements in Hitchcock's best films. Even Guttenberg's perky acting ("I wanna turn myself in!" he chirps on the phone to the cops after he's on the run) is reminiscent of Cary Grant's smirking aplomb in the face of Kafka-esque bad luck in *North By Northwest*. And Elizabeth McGovern's disguise late in the movie recalls Kim Novak transforming physically for the sake of some guy's lust in *Vertigo*. Having said all this, you might be asking, "Why not just watch Hitchcock?" It's the perfect question for Gus Van Zant's pointless, unimaginative, frame-for-frame re-make of *Psycho*. But Hanson brings rancid new things to this genre that Hitchcock tended to avoid, things like individual culpability, black serendipity, and the notion that Doing the Right Thing can backfire on you if you're a compromised person . . . and who isn't? These themes, straight out of novelist Patricia Highsmith's work, provide chocolate for Hitchock's peanut butter. What can I say -- I like Reese's.