The screenplay for The Last Window uses only two locations throughout the story. The interior of the protagonist, Lassus, is an apartment and the outer courtyard of the apartment becomes the cradle of people’s private lives.
Hitchcock elaborately established Jeffries’ role in relation to his neighbors, so the camera never needed to change locations. There are shots of the neighbors’ movements through their windows and Jeffries’ movements. Jeffries’ reactionary actions serve not only as a tool to suspend the plot, but also to inform. The phone conversation that Lassus conducts outlines both the suspended plot and the bachelor’s degree. On page ten he tells his editor “if you don’t pull me out of this swamp of boredom – I’ll do something violent – I’ll get married – imagine me rushing home to a warm apartment to hear – a quarrelsome wife.” As the story progresses, we see that in boredom and broken leg, Lassus becomes involved in boredom. he plots murder with his girlfriend and threatens marriage.
The dialogue he is writing is rich in Jeffries’ fear of marriage, in which he exterminates his neighbors through spies. In reading the screenplay this subtext becomes clear as black and white on the page, as opposed to the audience from the complex characters included in Hitchcock’s Mise`-en-Scene. There is also a line to be woven in, when Jeffries’ star nurse says to him: “Every funny statement is always hidden behind a real reason.”
The first three pages of the screenplay form a complete visual introduction to Jeffries and his entourage. We know that he lives in a small urban apartment” a neighborhood not prosperous, not poor, but conventional. housing for people living on marginal incomes , luck – or hope and careful planning”. We know it’s summer when the windows are open, people are sweating, children are playing by the fire and the thermometer reads 84 degrees.
When the screenplay orders the camera to introduce Lassus, his description reads; “tall, lean, vigorous, thirty-five, long and serious face – looking calm, in other circumstances capable of humor, passion, simple wonder and a certain intensity that speaks of inner conviction or moral force and basic honesty.” It seems that such a description not only introduces, but also what we can expect from this genre. Since only a sleeping Jimmy Stewart could pull off such a look, this also seems to have been written just for him. In these first five minutes we also see that the first photojournalist is active from the pictures on his wall. This contest sets up the bravest man stuck at home with a broken leg, which is followed by a phone conversation with his editor.
New aspects of writing are the use of descriptive characters. Some examples are, “the body is visibly tense,” and “the forehead trembles a little.” Even the dog’s actions are poetically written as “emerging unwillingly.” As much as the screenplay was written for a director who already knew what he wanted, it offers a solidly expressed picture of the blue work and dialogue.
The kind of principle that a writer can learn most from The Last Window is studying the reaction of the characters described. We know when the time is suspended to oppose the jokes by the opposite movements. These described actions also reveal the fears and desires of the characters through their reactions and how other characters act around them. There is also a witty introduction to the use of subtlety and how to use it by contrasting what the character says to what is shown on the screen. One of the most enduring moments is when Jeffries asks a friend standing in his room “who is his wife”, as we see in the envelope his part shot to the next pleasure, Ms. Torso, with the body on display. Jeffries’ friend in this scene also criticizes him for spying on his neighbors, as he stares at Ms. Torso, adding another layer of subtext.
These are but a few examples, but plenty to establish Jeffries’ character and condition. To analyze the fullness of the envelope of subtlety and further developing characters is in the essence of the whole book of interpretation and skill. for there are two or three. In this case, the analysis was only to recognize the genius composed by Hayes, undoubtedly under the guidance of Hitchcock’s teachers.
