Alfred Hitchcock

  Rear Window was released on September 1, 1954, It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by John Michael Hayes based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story It Had to Be Murder. Originally released by Paramount Pictures, the film stars James Stewart, Grace Kelly, Wendell Corey, Thelma Ritter, and Raymond Burr. It was screened at the 1954 Venice Film Festival. Rear Window is considered by many filmgoers, critics, and scholars to be one of Hitchcock's best as well as one of the greatest films ever made. It was ranked number 42 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies list and number 48 on the 10th-anniversary edition, and in 1997 was added to the United States National Film Registry in the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant." Despite big box-office success and four Oscar nominations, the film failed to score a best picture Oscar nomination, any acting nominations, or (most surprisingly) a nomination for the fantastic set design. The film earned Oscar nominations for Best Director, Alfred Hitchcock; Best Writing, Screenplay, John Michael Hayes; Best Cinematography, Color, Robert Burks; and Best Sound, Recording, Loren L. Ryder. Grace Kelly, who won the Oscar for Best Actress for The Country Girl the same year, 1954, won both the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Board of Reviews that year for three films, The Country Girl, Rear Window, and Dial M for Murder.

The film was shot entirely at Paramount Studios, which included an enormous indoor set to replicate a Greenwich Village courtyard. Set designers Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson spent six weeks building the extremely detailed and complex set, which ended up being the largest of its kind at Paramount. One of the unique features of the set was its massive drainage system, constructed to accommodate the rain sequence in the film. They also built the set around a highly nuanced lighting system which was able to create natural-looking lighting effects for both the day and night scenes. Though the address given in the film is 125 W. Ninth Street in New York's Greenwich Village, the set was actually based on a real courtyard located at 125 Christopher Street. In addition to the meticulous care and detail put into the set, careful attention was also given to sound, including the use of natural sounds and music that would drift across the courtyard and into Jefferies' apartment. At one point, the voice of Bing Crosby can be heard singing "To See You Is to Love You," originally from the 1952 Paramount film Road to Bali. Although veteran Hollywood composer Franz Waxman is credited with the score for the film, his contributions were limited to the opening and closing titles and the piano tune ("Lisa"). This was Waxman's final score for Hitchcock. The director used primarily "diegetic" sounds—sounds arising from the normal life of the characters—throughout the film. Hitchcock used costume designer Edith Head on all of his Paramount films.


On August 4, 1954, a "benefit world premiere" was held for the film, with United Nations officials and "prominent members of the social and entertainment worlds" at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City, The movie had a wide release on September 1, 1954. During its initial theatrical run, Rear Window earned $5.3 million in North American box office rentals on a 1-million-dollar budget. Nearly 30 years after the film's initial release, Roger Ebert reviewed the re-release by Universal Pictures in October 1983, after Hitchcock's estate was settled. He said the film "develops such a clean, uncluttered line from beginning to end that we're drawn through it (and into it) effortlessly. The experience is not so much like watching a movie, as like ... well, like spying on your neighbors. Hitchcock traps us right from the first ... And because Hitchcock makes us accomplices in Stewart's voyeurism, we're along for the ride. When an enraged man comes bursting through the door to kill Stewart, we can't detach ourselves, because we looked too, and so we share the guilt and, in a way, we deserve what's coming to him." The film negative was damaged considerably as a result of color dye fading as early as the 1960s. Nearly all of the yellow image dyes had faded. Despite fears that the film had been irrevocably damaged, preservation experts were able to restore the film nearly to its original coloration. While shooting, Sir Alfred Hitchcock worked only in Jeff's "apartment". The actors and actresses in other apartments wore flesh-colored earpieces so that he could radio his directions to them. Sir Alfred Hitchcock liked working with James Stewart, especially in comparison to his other most frequent star, Cary Grant, who was fussy and demanding. Stewart, in Hitchcock's eyes, was an easy-going, workmanlike performer. However, Wendell Corey, who appeared with Stewart in several movies including Rear Window, said the actor also had a "whopping big ego" and could intimidate even Hitchcock by out-shouting and out-arguing him if he thought a scene wasn't going well. "There was steel under all that mush," Corey said. James Stewart has stated that of the four movies he made with Sir Alfred Hitchcock, this one is his personal favorite. Grace Kelly was offered this film and On the Waterfront at the same time. She chose, Rear Window because she thought the role of "Lisa", who worked in the world of fashion, as she once did, suited her better.