
Terry is having an affair with his boss' wife Sylvia. One night after an office party they are together and Sylvia witnesses an attack on Denise from Terry's bedroom window. She doesn't want to expose their relationship and so is reluctant about talking to the police. Terry, wanting to help, gives the police the description of the attacker. He soon becomes the main suspect in the case. He then sets to find the real rapist/killer with some help from victim Denise.... (Full plot summary below)
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Terry is having an affair with his boss' wife Sylvia. One night after an office party they are together and Sylvia witnesses an attack on Denise from Terry's bedroom window. She doesn't want to expose their relationship and so is reluctant about talking to the police. Terry, wanting to help, gives the police the description of the attacker. He soon becomes the main suspect in the case. He then sets to find the real rapist/killer with some help from victim Denise.
Leave your thoughts about The Bedroom Window.
| Capital Times (Madison, WI)Rob ThomasYou know what? It's not a bad little noir, actually. |
| Spirituality and PracticeFrederic and Mary Ann BrussatNifty entertainment, with plenty of twists and turns |
| Chicago TribuneGene SiskelCurtis Hanson’s screenplay [from the novel The Witnesses by Anne Holden] involves several ingenious plot twists. Huppert carries the first half of the film, replaced by McGovern in importance in the final reels and both actresses are alluring and mysterious in keeping the piece suspenseful. Unfortunately, a lot of coincidences and just plain stupid actions by Guttenberg are relied upon to keep the pot boiling. |
| Chicago TribuneDave KehrThe only thing The Bedroom Window seems to be about is movie making - that is, it's about putting pieces of film together to create momentary effects that needn't signify anything at all. Sometimes this is called ''pure cinema.'' Sometimes, in fact, it's pure nonsense. |
| Washington PostPaul AttanasioYet another tiresome pastiche of old Hitchcock films, particularly "Rear Window" and "The Man Who Knew Too Much." We've seen it before, done (needless to say) better. The craftsmanship of the film aspires to the second rate. And it's a little wiggy to try to create a silky kind of glamorous intrigue in Baltimore. |
| Washington PostRita KempleyIsabelle Huppert and generic Steve Guttenberg prove incompatible costars in The Bedroom Window, a cockamamie mystery that finds these bi-continentals drawn together like, say, refrigerator magnets to styrofoam coolers. Yes, it's magic. |
| User ReviewPhilip GI think this film has an amazing plot. Steve Guttenburg is the MAN! It truly is a great 80's film. I just love the whole end part where they trick the murderer by luring him in. !!! AMAZING! |
| User ReviewBlake PMichael Shrieve and I scored the movie, Curtis' first feature, so this is hardly an objective view -- although I think it's accurate. Interesting that the critical response is almost twice the audience score. I think Curtis was, all through his career, probably a little too hip for the room, although certainly there were several hits, notably Hollywood Confidential and 8 Mile. But audience's didn't much like The Wonder Boys when it first came out either. Of course, opinions have changed about that and several other of Curtis's films after their first releases. I think eventually he'll be acknowledged as one of Hollywood's best directors. And, beyond that, he was just a wonderful person to work with -- never felt so supported. His suggestions were always exactly right. |
| User Reviewbill sA surprisingly good ode to Hitchcock with Guttenberg as the lead.Still doesn't seem to make sense that a well done thriller had Guttenberg as the main character but it does. |
| User ReviewClark BThis is a fine Hitchcockian thriller with a crackerjack script by Curtis Hanson. "The Bedroom Window" is best appreciated cold so I'll just hint at the plot. The hero (Steve Guttenberg) makes a well-intentioned mistake early in the film with some serious unintended consequences for him later. His white lie turns into a mountain of trouble. There's a cruel logic to what unspools, and his attempts to extricate himself seem perfectly rational, but the noose gets tighter anyway. The twists here are jazzy and (mostly) unpredictable though the last half hour or so isn't quite as sharp as the rest of the film. It loses some plausibility, but that's a minor complaint in a thriller and this is a gem of a movie. So why is this film nearly forgotten today? Well, first, there's the problem of Steve Guttenberg. You hate him, don't you? I don't think he's nearly as bad an actor as his reputation suggests - he's likable in this - but maybe Hanson should've cast someone with a little more edge. No matter how much I plead this movie's case, you're not going to watch a Steve Guttenberg movie, are you? Second is Hanson's unremarkable direction. It doesn't have the visual flair of Hitchcock or the Brian DePalma knockoffs of the time which invite inevitable comparisons. Hanson is an excellent screenwriter, but he didn't really find his footing as a director until the '90s and this movie doesn't have any "film geek" moments. He should've spun his camera around like a nut a couple of times and shot more closeups of eyeballs - maybe thrown in a clown. Film nerds eat that stuff up and they'd be discussing its "meaning" to this day. ("Hanson SEES the DIZZINESS of the CIRCUS-LIKE urban experience!") But the script is more logical and believable than any of DePalma's efforts, (and even a fair number of Hitchcock's), and it should be appreciated for that. This is a very entertaining suspenser and it's severely underrated. 4 stars. |