Rear Window is shot almost entirely from within one room and from thepoint-of-view outside the window. The film was made with a budget of $1 million ($11.7 million in2024), and grossed $27 million during its initial release ($316 million in2024).[5]
Professionalphotojournalist L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, recuperating from adventurous assignment-related injuries, with his leg in a cast from his waist to his foot, is confined to a wheelchair in hisGreenwich Village apartment. His mid-floor rear window looks out onto a courtyard with small garden plots, surrounded on four sides by apartments in adjoining buildings. Jeff is regularly visited by Stella, a middle-aged nurse, and his couture-dressed girlfriend, Lisa Fremont, a socialite who works in fashion.
During aheat wave, Jeff watches his neighbors through open windows, including a professional dancer coined "Miss Torso"; a songwriter with writer's block; a spinster who pantomimes dates with pretend suitors, "MissLonely-Hearts"; and travelingcostume jewelry salesman Lars Thorwald, who is hen-pecked by his bedridden wife. One night, Jeff hears a woman scream, followed by the sound of breaking glass. Later that night, Jeff wakes as a thunderstorm breaks; he observes Thorwald making repeated excursions carrying hisHalliburton aluminium sample case. After Jeff has fallen asleep, Thorwald leaves his apartment along with a woman obscured by a large black hat.
The next morning, Jeff notices that the Thorwalds' shades are drawn, Thorwald's wife seems to be gone, and Jeff sees Thorwald cleaning a large knife and a handsaw. Movers haul away a large trunk. After surveilling with binoculars and a camera with atelephoto lens, Jeff grows suspicious of Thorwald's activities. Convinced that Thorwald has murdered his wife, he first tells Stella, who becomes morbidly interested in the case, and then Lisa, who doubts him until they notice that Thorwald's wife is no longer in bed and the mattress is rolled up.
Jeff calls his friend, detective Tom Doyle, to request that he investigate Thorwald. Whilst sceptical, Doyle thoroughly investigates, finds nothing suspicious, and posits that the Thorwalds were having marital problems, and Thorwald had sent his wife on a vacation upstate. Temporarily mollified by this explanation, Jeff and Lisa begin to question their "rear window ethics". Later that night, however, a neighbor's dog is found dead in the courtyard; the previous day, Thorwald had chased the dog away from digging his garden flowerbed. The dog's alarmed owner cries out, drawing the attention of everyone except Thorwald, who sits furtively in his dark apartment, smoking. Now convinced his theory is true, Jeff looks at slides taken two weeks earlier and notices that Thorwald has replanted flowers in his garden, possibly to bury a body part.
The following night, Jeff telephones Thorwald to lure him away from his apartment, enabling Lisa and Stella to investigate Thorwald's flowerbed. Finding nothing, Lisa decides to climb into Thorwald's open window to search his apartment. Stella hurries back to Jeff.
While Lisa is searching, Jeff and Stella are distracted when they see Miss Lonely-Hearts contemplating an overdose. Thorwald returns unexpectedly and catches Lisa, who attempts to talk her way out of trouble. Unconvinced, Thorwald attacks her, causing Lisa to cry out. Jeff and Stella call the police. The operator finally connects Jeff with the police, and he reports that a man is assaulting a woman at Thorwald's apartment. The police arrive to intervene as Lisa and Thorwald scuffle. During police questioning, Lisa signals to Jeff that she is wearing Mrs. Thorwald's wedding ring. Seeing this, Thorwald realizes Jeff is surveilling his apartment. Rather than expose Thorwald, Lisa allows herself to be arrested forbreaking and entering so she can get to safety. Coincidentally, the songwriter had finished his song "Lisa," playing it loudly and, enthralled by the tune, Miss Lonely-Hearts abandons her suicide attempt.
Jeff phones Doyle and leaves an urgent message while Stella leaves to bail Lisa out of jail. Locating Jeff's apartment, Thorwald attacks him; Jeff's only defense in a darkened apartment is snapping his cameraflash bulbs in Thorwald's eyes. While they grapple, Doyle and other officers arrive, followed by Lisa and Stella. Police apprehend Thorwald just as he drops Jeff out of his window. Thorwald confesses his wife's murder to the police.
A few days later, the heat wave has broken, and life in the apartment complex has returned to normal. Miss Lonely-Hearts is seen socializing with the songwriter in his studio apartment while he plays music, Thorwald's neighbors get a new puppy, Miss Torso's homely-looking boyfriend Stanley returns from army deployment, and the newlyweds' honeymoon period has ended. Having broken his other leg in the fall, Jeff is still wheelchair-bound, now with both legs in casts. Lisa is seen stretched out next to him, wearing more casual attire and reading a travel book. After noticing Jeff asleep, she puts aside the book on exploration titledBeyond the High Himalayas and turns instead to readHarper's Bazaar.
James Stewart as L. B. Jefferies who watches his neighbors out of boredom while confined to a wheelchair.Grace Kelly as Lisa Fremont, in a couture gown, who Jeff cannot imagine roughing it in casual clothes.
James Stewart as L.B. "Jeff" Jefferies, a photojournalist
Rear Window is filmed almost entirely within Jeff's apartment and from his near-staticpoint-of-view at his window. InLaura Mulvey's essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," she identifies what she sees asvoyeurism andscopophilia in Hitchcock's movies, withRear Window used as one example of how she sees cinema as incorporating thepatriarchy into the way that pleasure is constructed and signaled to the audience. Additionally, she sees the "male gaze" as especially evident inRear Window in the portrayal of characters such as the dancer "Miss Torso", who is a spectacle for both Jeff and the audience (through his substitution) to enjoy.[10]
In his 1954 review of the film,François Truffaut suggested "this parable: The courtyard is the world, the reporter/photographer is the filmmaker, the binoculars stand for the camera and its lenses."[11]
John Fawell notes in Dennis Perry's bookHitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror that Hitchcock "recognized that the darkest aspect of voyeurism ... is our desire for awful things to happen to people ... to make ourselves feel better, and to relieve ourselves of the burden of examining our own lives."[12] Hitchcock challenges the audience, forcing them to peer through his rear window and become exposed to, as Donald Spoto calls it in his 1976 bookThe Art of Alfred Hitchcock: Fifty Years of His Motion Pictures, the "social contagion" of acting as voyeur.[13]
In his bookAlfred Hitchcock's "Rear Window",John Belton further addresses the underlying issues of voyeurism which he asserts are evident in the film. He says "Rear Window's story is 'about' spectacle; it explores the fascination with looking and the attraction of that which is being looked at."[14]
In an explicit example of a condemnation of voyeurism, Stella expresses her outrage at Jeffries' voyeuristic habits, saying, "In the old days, they'd put your eyes out with a red hot poker" and "What people ought to do is get outside and look in for a change."
With further analysis, Jeff's positive evolution understandably would be impossible without voyeurism—or as Robin Wood puts it in his 1989 bookHitchcock's Films Revisited, "the indulging of morbid curiosity and the consequences of that indulgence."[15]
The screenplay, which was written byJohn Michael Hayes, was based onCornell Woolrich's 1942 short storyIt Had to Be Murder. However, in 1990 the question as to who owned the film rights of Woolrich's original story went before theSupreme Court of the United States inStewart v. Abend.[16] Although the film was copyrighted in 1954 by Patron Inc. by a production company set up by Hitchcock and Stewart, a subsequent rights holder refused to acknowledge previous rights agreements. As a result, Stewart and Hitchcock's estate became involved in the Supreme Court case. Its outcome led to the litigant, Sheldon Abend, becoming credited as a producer ofthe 1998 remake ofRear Window.
The film was shot entirely at stage 17 atParamount Studios which included an enormous indoor set to replicate a Greenwich Village courtyard, with the set stretching from the bottom of the basement storeroom to the top of the lighting grid in the ceiling. The lighting was rigged with four interchangeable scene lighting arrangements: morning, afternoon, evening, and night-time.[17] Set designersHal 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 125Christopher Street.[18]
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 ofBing Crosby can be heard singing "To See You Is to Love You," originally from the 1952 Paramount filmRoad to Bali. Also heard on the soundtrack are versions of songs popularized earlier in the decade byNat King Cole ("Mona Lisa", 1950) andDean Martin ("That's Amore", 1953), along with segments fromLeonard Bernstein's score forJerome Robbins' balletFancy Free (1944),Richard Rodgers's song "Lover" (1932), and "M'appari tutt'amor" fromFriedrich von Flotow's operaMartha (1844), most borrowed from Paramount's music publisher,Famous Music.
Hitchcock used costume designerEdith Head on all of his Paramount films.
Although veteran Hollywood composerFranz Waxman is credited with the score for the film, his contributions were limited to the opening and closing titles and the songwriter's piano tune ("Lisa"). This was Waxman's final score for Hitchcock. The director instead used primarilydiegetic music and sounds throughout the film.[19]
Original trailer for the 1968 re-release ofRear Window (1954)
On August 4, 1954, a "benefit world premiere" was held for the film, withUnited Nations officials and "prominent members of the social and entertainment worlds" at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City,[20] with proceeds going to the American–Korean Foundation (an aid organization founded soon after the end of theKorean War and headed byMilton S. Eisenhower, brother ofPresident Eisenhower).[21]
During its initial theatrical run,Rear Window earned $5.3 million inNorth American box office rentals.[22]
Bosley Crowther ofThe New York Times called the film a "tense and exciting exercise" and deemed Hitchcock as a director whose work has a "maximum of build-up to the punch, a maximum of carefully tricked deception and incidents to divert and amuse." Crowther also noted that "Mr. Hitchcock's film is not 'significant.' What it has to say about people and human nature is superficial and glib, but it does expose many facets of the loneliness of city life, and it tacitly demonstrates the impulse of morbid curiosity. The purpose of it is sensation, and that it generally provides in the colorfulness of its detail and in the flood of menace toward the end."[20]Variety called the film "one of Alfred Hitchcock's better thrillers" which "combines technical and artistic skills in a manner that makes this an unusually good piece of murder mystery entertainment."[23] The film ranked fifth onCahiers du Cinéma'sTop 10 Films of the Year List in 1955.[24]
Time called it "just possibly the second-most entertaining picture (afterThe 39 Steps) ever made by Alfred Hitchcock" and a film in which there is "never an instant ... when Director Hitchcock is not in minute and masterly control of his material." The reviewer also noted the "occasional studied lapses of taste and, more important, the eerie sense a Hitchcock audience has of reacting in a manner so carefully foreseen as to seem practically foreordained."[25]Harrison's Reports named the film as a "first-rate thriller" that is "strictly an adult entertainment, but it should prove to be a popular one." They further added, "What helps to make the story highly entertaining is the fact that it is enhanced by clever dialogue and by delightful touches of comedy and romance that relieve the tension."[26]
Nearly 30 years after the film's initial release,Roger Ebert reviewed the re-release byUniversal 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'svoyeurism, 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."[27] In 1983, reviewing the filmVincent Canby wrote "Its appeal, which goes beyond that of other, equally masterly Hitchcock works, remains undiminished."[28]
Thereview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 99% based on 134 reviews, with an average rating of 9.30/10. The critics' consensus states that "Hitchcock exerted full potential of suspense in this masterpiece."[6] AtMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of a very rare perfect 100 out of 100 based on 18 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[29] In his 2012 review of the film, Killian Fox ofThe Guardian wrote: "Hitchcock made a career out of indulging our voyeuristic tendencies, and he never excited them more skilfully, or with more gleeful self-awareness, than inRear Window".[30]
In 1997,Rear Window was selected for preservation in the United StatesNational Film Registry by theLibrary of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". By this time, the film interested other directors with its theme of voyeurism, and other reworkings of the film soon followed, which includedBrian De Palma's 1984 filmBody Double andPhillip Noyce's 1993 filmSliver. In 1998Time Out magazine conducted a poll andRear Window was voted the 21st greatest film of all time.[31] In theBritish Film Institute's 2012Sight & Sound polls ofthe greatest films ever made,Rear Window was ranked 53rd among critics[32] and 48th among directors.[33] In the 2022 edition of the magazine'sGreatest films of all time list the film ranked 38th in the critics poll.[34] In 2017Empire magazine's readers' poll rankedRear Window at No. 72 on its list ofThe 100 Greatest Movies.[35] In 2022,Time Out magazine ranked the film at No. 26 on their list of "The 100 best thriller films of all time".[36]
Rear Window was restored by the team ofRobert A. Harris andJames C. Katz for its 1999 limited theatrical re-release (using Technicolor dye-transfer prints for the first time in this title's history) and the Collector's Edition DVD release in 2000.[citation needed][37]
Rear Window was one of five films that Hitchcock made with Paramount that were included under a deal in which the rights reverted to him after eight years. Hitchcock removed all five films from circulation for almost 20 years (often referred to as "The Lost Hitchcocks" or "The Forbidden Five"), and he rarely granted rights for them to be shown publicly. The rights were purchased by Universal in 1983 for a rumored $6 million, after which they were re-released in theaters. These films include:Vertigo,Rear Window,The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956),Rope, andThe Trouble With Harry.[42][43]
Disturbia (2007) is a modern-day retelling, with the protagonist (Shia LaBeouf) under house arrest instead of laid up with a broken leg, and who believes that his neighbor is a serial killer rather than having committed a single murder. On September 5, 2008, the Sheldon Abend Trust suedSteven Spielberg,DreamWorks,Viacom, andUniversal Studios, alleging that the producers ofDisturbia violated the copyright to the original Woolrich story owned by Abend.[47][48] On September 21, 2010, the U.S. District Court inAbend v. Spielberg, 748 F.Supp.2d 200 (S.D.N.Y. 2010), ruled thatDisturbia did not infringe the original Woolrich story.[49]
The 2004 horror filmSaw pays homage toRear Window, in a particular scene involving the characterAdam Stanheight (Leigh Whannell). In the film, Adam is kidnapped and uses a camera to take photos with his camera to illuminate the dark surroundings, mirroring the actions of Jeff inRear Window, with both scenes sharing a similar tone.
In February 2008, the film was referenced as a part ofVariety'sThe 2008 Hollywood Portfolio: Hitchcock Classics spread, withScarlett Johansson andJavier Bardem as Lisa and Jeff, respectively.[50]
Rear Window has been referenced multiple times by singer-songwriterTaylor Swift. In the music video for her single "Me!", Swift wears a dress similar to one ofEdith Head's designs worn byGrace Kelly.[51] Swift has also stated that the voyeuristic elements of the film inspired the storytelling of her albumFolklore.[52]
On September 25, 2012,Universal Studios Home Entertainment releasedRear Window for the first time onBlu-ray as part of the "Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection". This edition included numerous supplemental features such as anaudio commentary from John Fawell, excerpts from Hitchcock's interview withFrançois Truffaut, two theatrical trailers, and an interview with the film's screenwriterJohn Michael Hayes.[53]
On May 6, 2014, Universal Pictures Home Entertainment re-releasedRear Window on Blu-ray with the same supplemental features.[54]
^After the film's release, Paramount transferred the distribution rights to Hitchcock's estate, where they were acquired byUniversal Pictures in 1983.[1][2]
Citations
^McGilligan, Patrick (2003).Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light.Wiley. p. 653.
^Belton, John (2002). "Introduction: Spectacle and Narrative". In Belton, John (ed.).Alfred Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'. Cambridge University Press. p. 1.ISBN978-0-521-56423-6.OCLC40675056.
^Harris, Robert, and John Belton.Getting It Right: Robert Harris on Colour Restoration. Film History.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Rear Window essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010ISBN0826429777, pages 490-491
