Rear Window

Rear Window, motion picture about a voyeuristic photographer confined to his apartment due to a broken leg, who begins to suspect his neighbor of murder, based on the 1942 story 'It Had to Be Murder' by Cornell Woolrich. Released in 1954, this box-office hit film was directed by Alfred Hitchcock and stars Jimmy Stewart as L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries and Grace Kelly as his intrepid girlfriend Lisa Fremont. Confined to a wheelchair, Jeffries spends his time by the window spying on his neighbors across the apartment courtyard. One day he notices some suspicious actions carried out by neighbor Lars Thorwald. He confides in Lisa that he thinks Thorwald murdered his wife and buried her in the back garden. The police ignore their tips, and the couple eventually decide to look into matters themselves.

Director

• Alfred Hitchcock

Cast

• Jimmy Stewart (L.B. 'Jeff' Jeffries)
• Grace Kelly (Lisa Carol Fremont)
• Wendell Corey (Detective Thomas J. Doyle)
• Thelma Ritter (Stella)
• Raymond Burr (Lars Thorwald)
• Judith Evelyn (Miss Lonely Hearts)
• Ross Bagdasarian (Songwriter)
• Georgine Darcy (Miss Torso)
• Sara Berner (Woman on fire escape)
• Frank Cady (Fire escape man)
• Jesslyn Fax (Miss Hearing Aid)
• Rand Harper (Honeymooner)
• Irene Winston (Mrs. Thorwald)
• Havis Davenport (Newlywed)
• Mara English (Party girl)
• Kathryn Grant (Party girl)
• Alan Lee (Landlord)
• Anthony Warde (Detective)
• Bennie Bartlett (Miss Torso's friend)
• Barbara Bailey (Choreographer)
• Bess Flowers (Woman with poodle)
• Iphigenie Castiglioni (Bird woman)
• Ralph Smiley (Carl the waiter)
• Harry Landers (Young man)
• Richard Simmons (Man)
• Alfred Hitchcock (Butler in songwriter's apartment)
• Jerry Antes (Dancer)
• Mike Mahoney (Police officer)
• Len Hendry (Police officer)
• James Cornell (Man)

Awards

• Selected for Registration by the National Film Preservation Board (1997)

Trivia

• Director Hitchcock appears, as he always does in his films, in a cameo role in Rear Window. He is winding the clock in the songwriter’s apartment.
• Actor Raymond Burr was supposedly hired by Hitchcock to play the murderer because of his resemblance to producer David O. Selznick.
• Thirty-one full-scale apartments were constructed for this film; the biggest combined set ever built on the Paramount studio lot at the time.

Quotes

• Stella: “Let's go down there and find out what's buried in that garden.”
• Lisa: “Why not? I've always wanted to meet Mrs. Thorwald.”
• Stella (bemoaning the plan to investigate the murder): “Intelligence. Nothing has caused the human race so much trouble as intelligence.”