Raymond Burr

From John Guillermin, the outstanding director of The Blue Max, The Bridge at Remagen, Skyjacked, The Towering Inferno, King Kong and Death on the Nile, comes this thrilling mystery in the tradition of Harper and The Long Goodbye. Down-on-his-luck New York private eye P.J. Detweiler (George Peppard, Newman’s Law) takes a bodyguard job to protect Maureen Preble (Gayle Hunnicutt, Marlowe), the mistress of shady millionaire William Orbison (Raymond Burr, Rear Window). P.J. gets in over his head after Orbison’s business partner is gunned down and he’s framed for the murder.

Confined to his small courtyard apartment by a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) passes the time between visits from his nurse (Thelma Ritter) and his girlfriend Lisa (Grace Kelly) by watching his neighbors with his binoculars through the rear window of his room. When Jeffries thinks he sees one of his neighbors murder his invalid wife and dispose of her body, he convinces Lisa to investigate. One of Alfred Hitchcock's greatest masterpieces of suspense.

The 1982 sequel to Airplane! is basically more of the same class-clown ironies but with a more forced feeling to the jokes. In the first film, veterans such as Peter Graves, Robert Stack, and Lloyd Bridges were feeling their way through self-parody, and the air of experimentation was part of the fun. By this film, however, everybody knows what's up, and the assuredness of new cast members Raymond Burr, William Shatner, and Chuck Connors is almost counterproductive. Still, there's lots to laugh about.