Book Eight-and-a-Half of the Book-A-Week Quest
Rear Window (original title - It Had to Be Murder)
by Cornell Woolrich (1942)
This one was a short story, so I can't legitimately say it was a book (which is why this is book 8.5). 36 pages just doesn't count.
When I started reading it and I looked and saw how many pages it was, I was utterly confused how Alfred Hitchcock could've made such a great movie with it.
The reason Hitchcock succeeded is that he added so much to it. Heck, Grace Kelly's character wasn't even in the novella...and Rear Window without Grace Kelly would've been sacrilege! (Not to mention the fact that the novel didn't even include the great character actress Thelma Ritter's role as Jimmy Stewart's nurse)
It was pretty much just "eh." That's the best way to describe it. The movie fleshed everything out and was much more suspenseful. In this one, the guy suspects that his next-door neighbor has murdered his wife and then we discover whether he did or didn't. That was it. There was nothing exciting to it.
Do yourself a favor. See the movie. It's one of Hitchcock's best and one of my favorite movies of all time.
You can skip the book.
Revolutionary Road is back at the library, unfortunately. Meghan asked for it, too, but I wasn't able to renew it.
ReplyDeleteThis one I should be able to bring in. You should be able to breeze through it in one booth shift, for sure. This one's due back in a day or two, but I should be able to renew it. If I can, I'll bring it in.