Reappraising Rear  Rear Window  It's not a startling breach of
conventional wisdom to apply the term masterpiece to Alfred
Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is being reissued in a nice
restored print that, if memory serves, is better (though not by
much) than we've seen before. But critical reputations can be as
volatile as the stock market. And now that the once-maligned
Vertigo has had its reputation elevated, it's perhaps time for a
critical "market correction" with regard to 1954's Rear Window,
whose fortunes have slipped a bit compared to those of Vertigo
and the equally elevated Psycho.  Of course, hard though it may
be to believe at this moment in history, there once was a time,
not so very long ago, when Hitchcock himself needed to be
defended by critics. It is not coincidental that it was in the
Fifties and early Sixties, at the height of his commercial
popularity and public notoriety, that he was taken less
seriously. In some regards this was another instance of
popularity breeding disregard, if not ac