Look in Any Window (1961)

(spent more effort on the fucking posters than the damn movie)

So there were all these movies made post-Rebel Without a Cause about ~~rebel~~ youths~~ which I now only refer to as ~delicate delinquents~ thanks to Jerry Lewis, who satirized this new genre in like 1957, loooooong before it was getting anywhere near wrapping up. Like, are we still doing the delicate delinquent thing? I feel like yeah. It's just, like, less leather jackety. No one looks like Sal Mineo today except for maybe Zac Posen (half Brando, half Sal???), who is not an actor, so. We have fucking Zach Braff now. Yay. No, but there are still some good ~lost rebel youth~ movies. Basically anything Dane DeHaan has done/been in, yeah? Omg he totally would have fit in during the James Dean craze. OMG ISN'T HE PLAYING JAMES DEAN IN A MOVIE SOON IT'S SO PERFECT. Sorry, wait. This...this post is supposed to be about...not Dane DeHaan. Unfortunately. Ugh, I should just quit and start an I Heart Dane DeHaan blog because really, he's all that matters. Like, why am I frontin' right now acting like anything else is even remotely close to being as important as him. Well him and Tom Hardy. Wow, STILL have not started talking about this actual movie I came here to talk about. Spoiler alert: I hated it. I'm stalling talking about it because maybe I might...die? From? Writing? About? How much? I hated? It??

Look in Any Window is about my spending at least forty minutes trying to determine what character Paul Anka is playing. I saw the name "Paul Anka" in the credits. I think it's either the first name listed, or he's listed beside Ruth Roman's name. Also the credits tell me Paul has sung the title song. Paul Anka sounds like an old fat guy name, so I was like...is he playing the ~troubled youth~? I really wasn't accepting that. I thought maybe Paul was the mother's ~lover~...and then I thought it was Ruth Roman's husband because that dude looked really fucking ridiculous and out of place and I'm like: Yeah, totally, that's the singer slash ~actor~. It was weird how it took me forever to accept Paul was playing the troubled youth idiot. Like, I knew zero facts about Paul Anka before watching this movie so...why did I have any preconceived notions about him??? Ugh, you can REALLY see how much I hated this movie in that I am almost refusing to talk about the actual movie. I'm like: WHO DID PAUL ANKA PLAY THAT SOUNDS LIKE A FAT PERSON NAME BUT NO FAT PEOPLE IN MOVIE SYSTEM OVERLOAD. I really truly was spending most of my time being like "Is that Paul Anka?" ughggggh

So Paul Anka is playing - pause while I go look this shit up on imdb.com - Craig Fowler. Whatever. He's...a peeping tom. He wears this HORRIFYING mask and, like, goes around his neighborhood looking into people's windows. You can tell how white and old this shit is when the police are treating some kid leering into people's CURTAINLESS windows like it's a fucking code red terrorist threat or some shit. I don't mean to dismiss...how fucking creepy and unnervving peeping toms are. Like, it's for real. But the movie shows us Paul doing this and you're just like: *shrug*. It's almost immediately clear he's just doing it because he's lonely and his own family sucks seventeen gangrene dicks. Paul's mom, Ruth Roman, is having an affair with her next door neighbor friend's husband. He's a douche and looks...like an albino human football. I don't--he's odd...in appearance. He's like some machomacho type and he's neglecting his wife and their relationship is terrible and, gah, it's all so horrible. But not in a good way. The only actually okay thing in this movie is the performance by the woman who plays the neighbor wife, Carole Mathews. She's like in an entirely different fucking film. She was really serving me it. Like, she'd be that actress in a terrible soap opera that'd accidentally make the soap more terrible because she doesn't fall in line with everyone else's extreme mediocrity. That was sort of happening here. This movie is terrible, and then I get these little glimpses of goodness and it makes me hate it more. Like, why can't I just chill and hate this entirely? Come on.

So, Paul/Craig's parents are fucked up. His mom is wearing a bathing suit like the entire time and his dad is drunk and apparently also thinks he's in an entirely different film??? Or, perhaps, doesn't know he's an actor at all???? God, the dude who played Paul's father. What a fucking embarrassment. I mean, wow. Just, wow. I'm laughing thinking about how not fucking on that shit was. However, I was entertained by him. I'M A DRUNK PILOT HOW DARE THEY FIRE MEEEEE. I don't think he ever said this, I'm not even one hundred that he was actually a pilot, but he was certainly drunk. Drunk in a way that maybe Pee-wee from Pee-wee's Playhouse would think drunk is???? Embarrassing, truly. But great. In its not-greatness. And...when the father comes on the scene I'm thinking: Hmmm maybe this'll end up being one of those so bad it's good type of deals. I love super-shitty movies that are so shitty they end up not being that. They're Mommie Dearest, or there's so many unnecessary zoom-ins that I start pee-laughing, or Nicolas Cage. I love movies like that. And I thought maybe this would be that BUT NO LET'S SHUT IT DOWN RIGHT NOW, IT WASN'T. This movie is just-bad. Nothing else. I couldn't fucking wait for it to go off and it's like eighty minutes long. It felt like eighty years, dawg. 

Like, I couldn't even get excited when that neighbor girl smashed into that glass table and ended up not dying for some reason. I SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO LOVE THAT SO MUCH. Or that cop who was really aggressive and cynical and hostile for no reason. The older one of the two cops patrolling the neighborhood?? What was his fucking problem?? I couldn't even like how insane he seemed because this movie truly made me not want to live anymore. OR REMEMBER WHEN THE MOM JUST, LIKE, LEFT THE HOSE RUNNING ON THE GRASS????????? WHO DOES THAT???? SHE JUST HOPPED IN THAT DUDE'S CAR AND THEY WENT TO VEGAS LIKE WTF AND THEN PAUL COMES HOME LIKE EIGHT HOURS LATER AND THE FUCKING HOSE IS STILL RUNNING??!?!? No wonder that little chunk is spying into people's homes. Like, Paul's mommy can't even be bothered to turn off a garden hose. Do you think she can manage to get down to the store and buy a TV for little Pauly to watch?? She'll try to hire one of the Mexicans to help her carry it to the car and little José or Domingo or whatever will take off with it. No TV for little Pauly, so he peeps into these boring motherfuckers' windows. AND THE MOVIE MAKES VERY CLEAR THAT EVERYONE ELSE'S LIVES ARE SUPER TERRIBLE BUT ALSO BORING SO WTF IS PAUL EVEN DOING??? This movie is trying super hard to make some sort of point but, as is often the case with these type of films, I have no idea what it is. No, I know what it is. I know what they meant. But they failed. All I learned from this movie is that you can avoid being accused of a crime by simply running over to your house and putting a fucking robe on. Hmmm were you hanging out with a lovely lady and then you tried to rape her maybe and then in her haste to escape your clutches she smashes into a glass table????????? Just pop on over to your house and pop on a robe. You're basically wearing an invisibility cloak, son. 

Speaking of invisibility cloaks (no): 

Did I hate Paul? I don't know. He barely had any lines (prob for the best). But you know what I loved? Anytime he looked like this^? Because I think it's hot? No, quite the opposite. Oh goodness, look at his legs. He's serving me everything I never knew I needed. And, sort of, I definitely now know I dont??

I can't with this. Definitely watch this movie solely for Paul Anka lounging seductively in his bed after his mommy brings him breakfast. Also, I think when she comes in he's looking at porn? Something weird, because he hides it. I don't know, maybe his bra?? 

*oof sounds*