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Rear Window (1954)

Name: Rear Window
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Genre: drama film, crime film, mystery film
Duration: 112 min
Rating: 8.4

Rear Window is a 1954 American mystery thriller film produced and 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 in competition for the Golden Lion.

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock · Shot by Robert Burks · Cut by George Tomasini · Music by Franz Waxman · 112 min

How it was made

Set designers Hal Pereira and Joseph MacMillan Johnson spent six weeks building a full Greenwich Village courtyard on Paramount's Stage 18, the largest set of its kind at the studio, rigged with four interchangeable lighting setups for morning, afternoon, evening and night.
The set included a large drainage system built specifically to handle the film's rain sequence, and was modelled on a real courtyard at 125 Christopher Street rather than the fictional address given on screen.
The 90-second unbroken opening shot introducing Jefferies and his courtyard neighbours required ten takes across half a day of rehearsal and filming.
Composer Franz Waxman's score was limited to the opening and closing titles and a single songwriter's piano tune; Hitchcock instead built the soundtrack mainly from diegetic music and natural sounds drifting across the courtyard.

Behind the scenes

Rear Window 1954 - Behind the Scenes - A Conversation with Screenwriter John Michael Hayes — Cine Extras · 13 min
Rear Window 1954 - Behind the Scenes - Pure Cinema Through the Eyes of the Master — Cine Extras · 25 min
Through the Rear Window — CineStructure · 16 min
Rear Window 1954 - Behind the Scenes - Production Photographs — Cine Extras · 3 min
Rear Window 1954 - Behind the Scenes - Breaking Barriers The Sound of Hitchcock — Cine Extras · 24 min
Rear Window 1954 - Behind the Scenes - Hitchcock Truffaut Interview Excerpts — Cine Extras · 9 min

Elsewhere

More by Alfred Hitchcock

Woman to Woman — 1923
Always Tell Your Wife — 1923
The White Shadow — 1924
The Passionate Adventure — 1924
The Pleasure Garden — 1925
The Mountain Eagle — 1926
Downhill — 1927
The Ring — 1927
The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog — 1927
Easy Virtue — 1927
The Farmer's Wife — 1928
Champagne — 1928
Blackmail — 1929
Juno and the Paycock — 1929
The Manxman — 1929
Elstree Calling — 1930
An Elastic Affair — 1930
Murder! — 1930
The Skin Game — 1931
Rich and Strange — 1931
Mary — 1931
Number Seventeen — 1932
The Man Who Knew Too Much — 1934
Waltzes from Vienna — 1934
The 39 Steps — 1935
The Man Who Knew Too Much: The Secret Agent — 1935
Sabotage — 1936
Secret Agent — 1936
Young and Innocent — 1937
Jamaica Inn — 1939

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