OT: A New Article on Rear Window and "The Amazing Creation of Lars Thorwald"

Now imagine if someone made a movie, --in the 21st century!--that was basically the back story of Lars Thorwald; how he got that way; his childhood, upbringing,--Glens Falls or Erie, Pennsylvania?--the mind boggles.

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The realization that everyone was a child first is always a bit fascinating. There's usually an innocence there that will be slowly -- or quickly in military service -- taken away.

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His service in the war. The GI Bill was available to him but he didn't use it. Why? He wasn't always heavy, yet he let himself get that way at a young age. In his youth, as a teenager, he seemed to have a bright future, played sports, had friends. Now look at him, at forty, prematurely aged, with a nagging wife. His life has turned to ashes.

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It happens. The weight gain seems to have made him ungainly. Heavy of body, heavy of spirit. There is a pathos there.

And yet Hitchcock plays fair about Thorwald's dark side(just as he would with Norman going angry in the parlor scene.)

He proves surprisingly grouchy to the "art woman" in the courtyard: "Why don't you just shut up?" Something seems to have doubled up his pathos with a certain meanness -- the kind of meanness that allows a man to consider murder as his way out, and to murder a little dog as insurance if need be.

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This new woman he met was a way out. He had no illusions about the romantic part, but the freedom,--that's the ticket!--sooner or later he'll be making some serious career changes.

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That Thorwald could GET a girlfriend is a reminder than in early 50's America, men had most of the power, and women were drawn to it. Overweight costume jewelry salesman? He's a MAN. Thus a breadwinner catch. With a certain power to him -- those piercing, heavy-lidded blue eyes, for instance. I expect he met the woman in his rounds selling jewelry, maybe gave her some free samples. And he talked her into helping with his plot by "playing" Mrs. Thorwald -- just as Gavin Elster would later talk Judy Barton into becoming Madeleine for awhile.

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And I suppose Thorwald isn't a criminal by nature. He only wants to make one kill, break loose, turn over a new leaf. For the rest of his life he'll be an honest man; and a good citizen, too.

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Raymond Burr only said one thing about Thorwald -- years after he played him -- that was the actor's take on the man: "He wasn't a killer by nature."

One kill was likely all that was intended. But to me, its that lengthy dismemberment and carrying away of the body parts that takes Lars down a horrifying level or two. How -- in his stomach -- could he DO that? Its the horrific side of Lars that makes him a forbear of Norman.

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Lars is a man with ideas. After a decade of making mistakes, ever since leaving the army, he'd made a series of decisions that were basically one mistake after another.

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Well imagined, telegonus. Lars just sends out that vibe.

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In time, with that shrew of a wife, it became a habit for him. Now he's going to break that habit. He's learned from his mistakes. Middle aged he may be on the outside, he's a young man at heart, and now, a free man, he's going to show the world what Lars Thorwald is really made of...

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And it was a good plan, really. "In plain sight of his neighbors" to avoid suspicion, and with curtains drawn to avoid the killing and choppings up being seen. But there's that one guy who invades Thorwald's life, spies and pries and digs right in. We feel the invasion of privacy on Thorwald's part...and the frustration that this last attempt at freedom is going to be screwed up by a total stranger.