Men, are you over 40?
When you wake up in the morning, do you feel tired and rundown?
do you have that listless feeling?
- Jefferies. - Congratulations, Jeff.
- For what? - Getting rid of that cast.
Who said I was getting rid of it?
This is Wednesday.
Seven weeks from the day you broke your leg. Yes or no?
Gunnison, how did you get to be such a big editor
with such a small memory?
Thrift, industry and hard work...
and catching the publisher with his secretary,
- did I get the wrong day? - No.
No, wrong week.
Next Wednesday I emerge from this... plaster cocoon.
That's too bad, Jeff. Well, I guess I can't be lucky every day.
Forget I called.
Yeah, I sure feel sorry for you, Gunnison.
Must be rough on you thinking of me wearing this cast for another week.
That one week is gonna cost me my best photographer,
and you a big assignment.
Where?
There's no point in even talking about it.
Oh, come on, come on. Where?
Kashmir. Got a code tip from the bureau chief this morning.
The place is about to go up in smoke.
What did I tell you? Didn't I tell you that's the next place to watch?
- You did. - When do I leave? Hour?
- With that cast on? You don't. - Stop sounding stuffy.
I can take pictures from a jeep or a water buffalo, if necessary.
You're too valuable to the magazine for us to play around with.
- I'll send Morgan or Lambert. - Morgan or Lambert.
That's fine.
I get myself half-killed for you,
and you reward me by stealing my assignments.
I didn't ask you to stand in the middle of an automobile racetrack.
You asked for something dramatically different.
- You got it. - So did you.
- Goodbye, Jeff. - Now, wait a minute, Gunnison.
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.
- Bye, Jeff. - No, Gunnison, I...
If you don't pull me out of this swamp of boredom,
I'm gonna do something drastic.
- Like what? - "Like what?" Get married.
Then I'll never be able to go anywhere.
It's about time you got married,
before you turn into a lonesome and bitter, old man.
Yeah, can't you just see me?
Rushing home to a hot apartment
to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher
and the garbage disposal and the nagging wife.
Jeff, wives don't nag any more, they discuss.
Is that so? Is that so?
Maybe in the high-rent district they discuss.
In my neighborhood, they still nag.
Well, you know best. I'll call you later.
Yeah, have some good news the next time, huh?
Good morning, I said. "Good morning!"
Oh, good morning.
Say, I wouldn't dig so deep if I were you.
You're giving them far too much water.
Why don't you shut up?
Well!
I do declare.
State sentence for a peeping tom,
is six months in the workhouse.
Oh, hello, sweetheart.
They got no windows in the workhouse.
In the old days, they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker.
Any of those bikini bombshells you're always watching
worth a red-hot poker?
Oh, dear.
We've become a race of Peeping Toms.
What people ought to do is get outside their own house
and look in for a change.
Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of homespun philosophy?
Reader's digest, April 1939.
Well, I only quote from the best.
You don't have to take my temperature this morning.
Quiet. See if you can break 100.
You know, I should have been a gypsy fortune-teller
instead of an insurance company nurse.
I got a nose for trouble. Can smell it ten miles away.
You heard of that market crash in '29? I predicted that.
Just how did you do that, Stella?
Oh, simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors.
"Kidney ailment," they said. "Nerves," I said.
Then I asked myself,
"What's General Motors got to be nervous about?"
"Overproduction," I says. "Collapse."
When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day,
the whole country's ready to let go.
You know, Stella, in economics, a kidney ailment
has no relationship to the stock market.
- None whatsoever. - Crashed, didn't it?
I can smell trouble right here in this apartment.
First you smash your leg,
then you get to looking 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.
You say, "Judge, it was only a 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 Dannamora."
Right now, I'd welcome trouble.
You've got a hormone deficiency.
How can you tell from a thermometer?
Those bathing beauties you've been watching
haven't raised your temperature one degree in a month.
Here we go.
One more week.
I think you're right.
I think there is gonna be trouble around here.
I knew it.
Ooh. Do you ever heat that stuff?
Gives your circulation something to fight.
- What kind of trouble? - Lisa Fremont.
You kidding? She's a beautiful, young girl,
and you're a reasonably healthy young man.
- She expects me to marry her. - That's normal.
- I don't want to. - That's abnormal.
I'm just not ready for marriage.
Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along.
Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain
who can get one eye open.
She's alright.
- What did you do, have a fight? - No.
- Father loading up the shotgun? - What?
- Please, Stella. - It's happened before, you know.
Some of the world's happiest marriages have
started 'under the gun,' as you might say.
- No, she's just not the girl for me. - 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.
Is what you want something you can discuss?
What? It's very simple, Stella.
She belongs to that rarefied atmosphere of Park Avenue:
expensive restaurants and literary cocktail parties.
People with sense belong wherever they're put.
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.
You never gonna get married?
I'll probably get married one of these days,
but when I do, it's gonna be to someone who thinks of life
not just as a new dress and a lobster dinner
and the latest scandal.
I need a woman who's willing to... Hold it.
Who's willing to go anywhere and do anything and love it.
So the honest thing for me to do is just call the whole thing off.
Let her find somebody else.
Yeah, I can hear you now.
"Get out of my life, you perfectly wonderful woman."
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
and not sit around analyzing each other
like two specimens in a bottle.
There's an intelligent way to approach marriage.
Intelligence.
Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.
Modern marriage.
- No, we've progressed emotionally. - 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 -
When I married Myles, we were both a couple of maladjusted misfits.
We are still maladjusted, and we have loved every minute of it.
Well, that's fine, Stella.
Now, would you fix me a sandwich, please?
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.
- She pay you much? - Oh.
There you are.
- Here's the key. - Thank you.
Well, if you want anything, just ring.
Honey.
Come on.
Got to carry you over the threshold.
Window shopper.
How's your leg?
It hurts a little.
- And your stomach? - Empty as a football.
And your love life?
Not too active.
Anything else bothering you?
Mm-hm.
Who are you?
Reading from top to bottom:
Lisa...
Carol...
Fremont.
Is this the Lisa Fremont who never wears the same dress twice?
Only because it's expected of her.
It's right off the Paris plane.
- Do you think it'll sell? - That depends on the quote.
Let's see now. There's the airplane ticket over,
import duties, hidden taxes,
- profit markup - - A steal at $1,100.
Eleven hundred?
They ought to list that dress on the stock exchange.
We sell a dozen a day in this price range.
Who buys them, tax collectors?
Even if I had to pay, it would be worth it.
- Just for the occasion. - Why, is something big going on?
It's going on right here. It's a big night.
It's just an old run-of-the-mill Wednesday.
The calendar's full of them.
It's opening night of the last depressing week of L B Jefferies in a cast.
Well, I haven't noticed a big demand for tickets.
That's because I bought out the house.
You know, this cigarette box has seen better days.
I picked that up in Shanghai, which has also seen better days.
It's cracked and you never use it.
It's too ornate.
I'm sending up a plain, flat, silver one with your initials.
That's no way to spend your hard-earned money.
I wanted to.
Ooh!
What would you think of starting off with dinner at '21'?
You have, perhaps, an ambulance downstairs?
No, better than that: '21'.
Thank you for waiting, Carl. The kitchen's right there on the left,
I'll take the wine.
- Good evening, Mr. Jefferies. - Carl.
Just put everything in the oven, Carl, on low.
- Let's open the wine now. - Alright.
- It's a Montrachet. - A great big glassful.
There's a corkscrew right over there.
Here, I'll do it.
- Big enough? - Yeah, they're fine.
I can't think of anything more boring or tiresome
than what you've been through and the last week must be the hardest.
Alright. Yeah, I want to get this thing off and get moving.
Well, I'm going to make this a week you'll never forget.
Fine, thanks.
Just a minute, Carl.
- This will take care of the taxi. - Thank you, Miss Fremont.
- Have a pleasant dinner, Mr. Jefferies. - Alright, Good night.
Good night.
What a day I've had.
- Are you tired? - Not a bit.
I was all morning in a meeting,
then I had to dash to the Waldorf for a quick drink with Madam Dufrene,
who's just over from Paris with some spy reports.
Then I had to go to '21' and have lunch with the Harper's Bazaar people.
That's when I ordered dinner.
Then I had two fall showings 20 blocks apart.
Then I had to have a cocktail with Leland and Slim Hayward.
We're trying to get his new show.
Then I had to dash back and change.
Well, now, tell me, what was Mrs. Hayward wearing?
- She looked wonderfully cool. - She didn't, did she?
She had on the most divine Italian hand-printed -
- Oh, Italian? - Oh, you.
- Italian. Imagine. - To think I planted three nice items
- in the columns about you today. - You did?
- You can't buy that kind of publicity. - I know.
Someday you may want to open up a studio of your own here.
How would I run it from, say, Pakistan?
Jeff...
Isn't it time you came home? You could pick your assignment.
- I wish there was one I wanted. - Make the one you want.
- You mean leave the magazine? - Yes.
- For what? - For yourself and me.
I could get you a dozen assignments tomorrow:
Fashions, portraits.
- 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? Wouldn't that make a hit?
I could see you looking very handsome and successful
in a dark blue, flannel suit.
Let's stop talking nonsense, shall we?
Hm?
Guess I'd better start setting up for dinner.
At least that's something you'll never have to worry about.
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 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.
I'd say she's doing a woman's hardest job.
Juggling wolves.
Thank you.
Well, she picked the most prosperous-looking one.
She's not in love with him... or any of them.
Oh, how can you tell that from here?
You said it resembled my apartment, didn't you?
I hope they're cooked this time.
Where's that wonderful music coming from?
Some songwriter over there in the studio apartment.
Well...
He lives alone.
Probably had a very unhappy marriage.
Oh, it's enchanting.
It's almost as if it were being written especially for us.
Hm. No wonder he's having so much trouble with it.
At least you can't say the dinner isn't right.
Lisa... it's perfect.
As always.
There can't be that much difference between people and the way they live.
We all eat, talk, drink, laugh, wear clothes.
Well, now look -
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 -
It doesn't make sense.
What's so different about it here from there or anyplace you go
that one person couldn't live in both places just as easily?
Some people can. Now, if you'll just let me -
What is it but traveling from one place to another taking pictures?
It's like being a tourist on an endless vacation.
OK. That's your opinion. You're entitled to it.
- Now, let me give you my side. - It's ridiculous to say
that it can only be done by a special, private little group of anointed people.
I made a simple statement, a true statement,
but I can back it up if you'll just shut up for a minute.
If your opinion is as rude as your manner, I don't think I care to hear it.
Oh, come on now. Simmer down.
I can't fit in here. You can't fit in there.
According to you, people should be born, live and die
- on the same spot! - Shut up!
- Did you ever eat fish heads and rice? - Of course not.
Well, you might have to if you went with me.
Did you ever try to keep warm in a C-54 at 15,000 feet,
20 degrees below zero?
Oh, I do it all the time,
whenever I have a few minutes after lunch.
Did you ever get shot at? Run over?
Did you ever get sandbagged
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.
- Three. - Alright, three.
They'll make a big hit in Finland, just before you freeze to death.
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.
Jeff, you don't have to be deliberately repulsive just to impress me I'm wrong.
Deliberately repulsive? I'm 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.
- You're too stubborn to argue with. - I'm not stubborn. I'm just truthful.
I know, a lesser man would have told me it was one long holiday,
and I would have awakened to a rude disillusionment.
Well, now, wait a minute.
If you want to get vicious on this thing, I'd be happy to accommodate you.
No, I don't particularly want that.
So that's it?
You won't stay here, and I can't go with you.
It would be the wrong thing.
You don't think either one of us could ever change?
Right now it doesn't seem so.
I-I'm in love with you.
I don't care what you do for a living.
I'd 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.
Not quite, it seems.
Goodbye, Jeff.
You mean good night.
- I mean what I said. - Well, Lisa...
couldn't we just...
Couldn't we just... keep things status quo?
Without any future?
Well, when am I gonna see you again?
Not for a long time.
At least... not until tomorrow night.
Hey! Rain.
Grab that. Wait, I'll get the clock.
Oh, no!
Pull it.
Pull on it. Let me do it.
In you go.
No, you can't come in. It's much too late.
No, not now.
No, I said good night.
What's that supposed to be, ma'am?
It's called hunger.
You'd think the rain would have cooled things off.
- All it did was make the heat wet. - Ahh, that's it.
That's stiff right there. Right there.
The insurance company would be much happier
if you'd sleep in bed at night instead of in that wheelchair.
- How do you know? - Eyes are all bloodshot.
Must have been watching out that window for hours.
Yeah, I was.
What are you gonna do if one of them catches you?
It depends which one. Miss Torso, for example -
You keep your mind off her.
She sure is the 'eat, drink and be merry' girl.
Yeah, she'll wind up fat, alcoholic and miserable.
Yeah.
Speaking of misery, poor Miss Lonelyhearts.
She drank herself to sleep again, alone.
Poor soul. Maybe one day she'll find her happiness.
Yeah, and some man will lose his.
Isn't there anybody in the neighborhood
who could cast an eye in her direction?
Well...
It might just be that the salesman will be available soon.
Oh, him and his wife splitting up?
I just can't figure it.
He went out several times last night in the rain,
- carrying his sample case. - Well, he's a salesman, isn't he?
What would he be selling at three o'clock in the morning?
Flashlights. Luminous dials for watches.
House numbers that light up.
I don't think so.
I think he was taking something out of the apartment.
Uh-huh. His personal effects.
He's gonna run out on her, the coward.
Yeah. Sometimes it's worse to stay than it is to run.
Yeah, well, it takes a particularly low type of man to do a thing like that.
How about this morning?
Any further developments?
The shades are all drawn in the apartment.
- In this heat? - Yeah.
Well, they're up now.
- Get back! Get back. - Where do you want me to go?
- Come on, get out of sight. - What's the matter?
That salesman's looking out of his window. You see?
Get back! He'll see you.
I'm not shy. I've been looked at before.
That's no ordinary look.
That's the kind of look a man gives
when he's afraid somebody might be watching him.
Get away from there.
He'll be after you. Go on, into the house.
Into the house. Shoo, shoo.
Goodbye, Mr. Jefferies. See you tomorrow.
Uh-huh.
- And don't sleep in that chair again. - Uh-huh.
"Uh-huh. Uh-huh." Great conversationalist.
Stella...
Take those binoculars out and bring them here, will you?
Trouble.
I can smell it.
I'll be glad when they crack that cast, and I can get outta here.
Uh-huh.
How far does a girl have to go before you'll notice her?
Well, if she's pretty enough, she doesn't have to go anywhere.
She just has to 'be.'
Well, ain't I?
Pay attention to me.
I'm not exactly on the other side of the room.
Your mind is... and when I want a man, I want all of him.
Don't you ever have any problems?
I have one now.
So do I.
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?
He likes the way his wife welcomes him home.
No, no. Not this salesman's wife.
And why didn't he go to work today?
Homework. It's more interesting.
What's interesting about a butcher knife
and a small saw
wrapped in newspaper?
Nothing, thank heaven.
Why hasn't he been in his wife's bedroom all day?
I wouldn't dare answer that.
Well, listen. I'll answer it, Lisa.
There's something terribly wrong.
- And I'm afraid it's with me. - What do you think?
Something too frightful to utter.
He went out a few minutes ago in his undershirt, hasn't come back.
That would be a terrible job to tackle.
Just how would you start to cut up a human body?
Jeff, I'll be honest with you. You're beginning to scare me.
Jeff, did you hear what I said? You're beginning to scare -
Shh! He's coming back!
- Jeff, if you could only see yourself! - What's the matter?
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 diseased!
Do you think I consider it recreation?
I don't know what you consider it,
but if you don't stop it, I'm getting out of here.
- What's the - - What is it you're looking for?
I just want to find out what's the matter with the salesman's wife.
Does that make me sound like a madman?
What makes you think there's something the matter with her?
A lot of things. She's an invalid. She demands constant care.
Yet not the husband or anybody else has been in to see her all day. Why?
- Maybe she died. - Where's the doctor?
Where's the undertaker?
She could be sleeping, under sedatives.
He's in there now. There's nothing to see.
There is something. I've seen it through that window.
I've seen bickering and family quarrels
and mysterious trips at night
and knives and saws and rope.
Now, since last evening, not a sign of the wife. Tell me where she is.
- I don't know. - What's she doing?
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 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?
You could see all that he did, couldn't you?
- Of course, I - - You could see cos the shades were up
and he walked along the corridor and the street and the backyard.
I've seen him -
Jeff, do you think a murderer would let you see all that?
That he wouldn't pull the shades down and hide behind them?
He's being clever. He's being nonchalant.
And that's where you're not bring clever.
A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.
Why not?
For all you know, there's something sinister going on there.
Where? Oh.
No comment.
Let's start from the beginning again, Jeff.
Tell me everything you saw
and what you think it means.
Yeah?
"The name on the second floor
rear mail box reads, 'Mr. and Mrs. Lars'."
"That's L-a-r-s."
"Lars Thorwald."
What's the number of the apartment?
"125 West Ninth Street."
Thank you, dear.
"OK, chief. What's my next assignment?"
Just go home.
"Alright, but what's he doing now?"
He's just sitting in the living room in the dark.
Hasn't gone near the bedroom.
Now you go home and get some sleep. Good night.
"Good night."
"What's it about, Jeff?"
Look, Doyle, I can't tell you over the phone.
You have to be here and see the whole set-up.
It's probably nothing. It's just a little neighborhood murder.
- 'Did you say murder?' - Yes, as a matter of fact, I did.
"Oh, come now."
My only thought was throwing a little business your way, that's all.
I figured a detective would jump at the chance of something to detect.
- "I'm not working." - What?
"This happens to be my day off."
I usually took my best pictures on my day off.
- "I'll drop by." - OK, Doyle. As soon as you can.
Bless your heart, Stella.
Gee whiz, look at this.
I can't tell you what a welcome sight this is.
No wonder your husband still loves you.
- The police. - What?
- You called the police. - Well, not exactly.
Not an official call. It's an old friend of mine.
An old, ornery friend of mine.
Just where do you suppose he cut her up?
Of course. The bathtub.
That's the only place where he could have washed away the blood.