Rear Window (1954)

Thelma Ritter: Stella

Photos 

Quotes 

• Stella : How much do we need to bail Lisa from jail?

  L.B. Jefferies : Well, this is first offense burglary, that's about $250. I have $127.

  Stella : Lisa's handbag. Uh... 50 cents. I got $20 or so in my purse.

  L.B. Jefferies : And what about the rest?

  Stella : When those cops at the station see Lisa, they'll even contribute.

• Stella : Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.

• Lisa Fremont : What's he doing? Cleaning house?

  L.B. Jefferies : He's washing and scrubbing down the bathroom walls.

  Stella : Must've splattered a lot.

  [both Jeff and Lisa look at Stella with disgust] 

  Stella : Come on, that's what were all thinkin'. He killed her in there, now he has to clean up those stains before he leaves.

  Lisa Fremont : Stella... your choice of words!

  Stella : Nobody ever invented a polite word for a killin' yet.

• L.B. Jefferies : She wants me to marry her.

  Stella : That's normal.

  L.B. Jefferies : I don't want to.

  Stella : That's abnormal.

• [regarding Jeff's telephoto lens] 

  Stella : Mind if I use that portable keyhole?

• Stella : I can hear you now: "Get out of my life, you wonderful woman. You're too good for me."

• Stella : Maybe one day she'll find her happiness.

  L.B. Jefferies : Yeah, some man'll lose his.

• Stella : When I married Miles, we were both a couple of maladjusted misfits. We are still maladjusted misfits, and we have loved every minute of it.

• Stella : You heard of that market crash in '29? I predicted that.

  L.B. Jefferies : Oh, just how did you do that, Stella?

  Stella : Oh, simple. I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said. Nerves, I said. And 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.

• Stella : He's gonna run out on her, the coward.

  L.B. Jefferies : Sometimes it's worse to stay than it is to run.

• Stella : When two people love each other, they come together - WHAM - like two taxis on Broadway.

• Lisa Fremont : The last thing Mrs. Thorwald would leave behind would be her wedding ring. Stella, do you ever leave yours at home?

  Stella : The only way somebody would get that would be to chop off my - finger. Let's go down to the garden and find out what's buried there.

  Lisa Fremont : Why not? I always wanted to meet Mrs. Thorwald.

• L.B. Jefferies : She sure is the "eat, drink and be merry" girl.

  Stella : Yeah, she'll wind up fat, alcoholic and miserable.

• Stella : 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?

  L.B. Jefferies : Reader's Digest, April 1939.

  Stella : Well, I only quote from the best.

• Detective : [referring to what was buried in Thorwald's flower bed]  He said the dog got too inquisitive, so he dug it up. It's in a hat box over in his apartment.

  Tom Doyle : Want to look?

  Stella : No thanks, I don't want any part of her.

• L.B. Jefferies : Those two yellow zinnias at the end, they're shorter now. Now since when do flowers grow shorter over the course of two weeks? Something's buried there.

  Lisa Fremont : Mrs. Thorwald!

  Stella : You haven't spent much time around cemeteries, have you? Mr. Thorwald could hardly bury his wife's body in plot of ground about one foot square. Unless he put her in standing on end, in which case he wouldn't need the knives and saw.

• Stella : You'd think the rain would've cooled things down. All it did was make the heat wet.

• L.B. Jefferies : She's too perfect, she's too talented, she's too beautiful, she's too sophisticated, she's too everything but what I want.

  Stella : Is, um, what you want something you can discuss?

• L.B. Jefferies : Would you fix me a sandwich, please?

  Stella : Yes, I will. And I'll spread a little common sense on the bread.

• Stella : Every man's ready to get married when the right girl comes along.

• L.B. Jefferies : I just can't figure it. He went out several times last night in the rain carrying his sample case.

  Stella : Well, he's a salesman, isn't he?

  L.B. Jefferies : Well, what would he be selling at three o'clock in the morning?

  Stella : Flashlights. Luminous dials for watches. House numbers that light up.

• Stella : The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the workhouse.

  L.B. Jefferies : Oh, hello, Stella.

  Stella : And they got no windows in the workhouse.

• Stella : [to Lisa]  You haven't spent much time around cemeteries, have you?

• L.B. Jefferies : [shivering as cold alcohol is poured on his back before a rubdown]  Say, don't you ever heat that stuff up?

  Stella : Aw, it gives your system something to fight against.

• Stella : [when asked by Jeff if she ever takes off her wedding ring to prove a point that Mrs. Thorwald would never leave without her wedding ring]  The only way anybody could get that ring from me is to chop off my finger!