High Noon (1952)

Marshal Kane (Gary Cooper) is fixing to leave town, but when three gunmen ride in and quietly await the arrival of a fourth, a man that Kane sent to jail five years previously, things begin to get complicated for the lawman.
Shot in B+W but far from the same in character or tone, High Noon went hard against the grain, opting for a less romanticised setting than 1950s Westerns typically took. The nuts and bolts of its construction are plain to see in the early stages, but as the dreaded hour approaches the crisis of conscience that attacks the marshal takes on even more importance, achieving a perfect balance against a threat that makes its presence felt even when it isn't onscreen. Kane's ruminations and desperate actions, and the music that adds a dire urgency to both, become so utterly engaging that we feel every second ticking away the same as he does, in almost real time.

4 clock faces out of 5

REAR WINDOW [1954]

Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly find themselves in a bit of a nosy pickle in director Alfred Hitchcock's classic voyeuristic thriller Rear Window.
Stewart plays a man confined to a wheelchair in his New York apartment, where he gleefully spies over the neighborhood through his window, leading him to believe he's seen a man murder his wife.
Hitchcock allows the camera to only move throughout the apartment, thereby limiting the audience to what only Stewart's immobilized character can hear and see.  Shot and told with complex simplicity, lovingly detailed ambience, light-hearted thrills and plenty of snappy dialogues, Rear Window is the type of film that needs the sharp precision of The Fat Man in order for it not to fall apart.  Perhaps it's just an entertaining way for Hitchcock to tell us to just get out and talk to folks or he'll break both your legs.

4½ types of relationships out of 5

DIAL M FOR MURDER [1954]

Director Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 crime drama, Dial M for Murder, is generally known for being the last of The Golden Age of Cinema's run of 3D films.
It's the tale of a wealthy London man who hatches a plan to have his wife murdered while he's out having some drinks with the boys, only she evades her attacker and the man must scramble to uphold his false illusion of innocence.   Mostly constrained to being set in one room, Hitchcock's camerawork is forced to play with strict inventiveness.  It's clever little piece that doesn't quite have the enthusiasm inserted into it as some of the fat man's other works.  The normally wonderful Grace Kelly is reduced to a dull pawn to Ray Milland's delightfully cold performance.  From a technical standpoint the film is a joy to watch but the rest leaves much to be desired.

3 not-so perfect murders out of 5