Trivia
Alfred Hitchcock supposedly hired Raymond Burr to play Lars Thorwald because he could be easily made to look like his old producer David O. Selznick, who Alfred Hitchcock felt interfered too much.
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All of the sound in the film is diegetic, meaning that all the music, speech and other sounds all come from within the world of the film [with the exception of non-diegetic orchestral music heard in the first three shots of the film].
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The size of the set necessitated excavation of the soundstage floor. Thus Jeff's apartment was actually at street level.
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During the month-long shoot Georgine Darcy, who played "Miss Torso", "lived" in her apartment all day, relaxing between takes as if really at home.
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The love affair between war photographer Robert Capa and actress Ingrid Bergman is believed to be Alfred Hitchcock's inspiration for the film's romantic aspect.
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While shooting, Alfred Hitchcock worked only in Jeff's "apartment." The actors in other apartments wore flesh-colored earpieces so that he could radio his directions to them.
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One thousand arc lights were used to simulate sunlight. Thanks to extensive pre-lighting of the set, the crew could make the changeover from day to night in under forty-five minutes.
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The film was unavailable for decades because its rights (together with four other pictures of the same period) were bought back by Alfred Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter. They've been known for long as the infamous "Five Lost Hitchcocks" among film buffs, and were re-released in theatres around 1984 after a 30-year absence. The others are The Man Who Knew Too Much, Rope, The Trouble with Harry, and Vertigo. However, prior to the theatrical re-releases in the 1980's, "Rear Window" was televised once, in 1971, on ABC, although the network technically did not have the legal right to do so.
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All the apartments in Thorwald's building had electricity and running water, and could be lived in.
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Once during the filming, the lights were so hot that they set off the soundstage sprinkler system.
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The entire picture was shot on one set, which required months of planning and construction. The apartment-courtyard set measured 98 feet wide, 185 feet long and 40 feet high, and consisted of 31 apartments, eight of which were completely furnished. The courtyard was set 20 to 30 feet below stage level, and some of the buildings were the equivalent of five or six stories high. The film was shot quickly on the heels of Dial M for Murder, November 27 1953-February 26 1954.
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Screenwriter John Michael Hayes based Lisa on his own wife, who'd been a professional fashion model when they married.
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Ranked #3 on the American Film Institute's list of the 10 greatest films in the genre "Mystery" in June 2008.
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The 35mm camera that James Stewart holds with the huge telephoto lens attached is an early 1950s Exakta VX (also known as the "Varex" outside the USA) manufactured in Dresden, (east) Germany. The lens is a 400mm Kilfitt. The Paramount property department purposely covered over the name with black masking tape.
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The original story by Cornell Woolrich had no love story and no additional neighbors for L.B. Jeffries to spy on, and was created by Alfred Hitchcock and John Michael Hayes. Hayes was encouraged by Hitchcock to spend time with Grace Kelly before writing the Lisa character and Hayes admitted that elements of Lisa were inspired by the actress.
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To accommodate the enormous set, a higher ceiling was required. Alfred Hitchcock had the production company tear out the entire floor of the studio, revealing the basement. What the audience sees as the courtyard was originally the basement level of the studio.
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The lens James Stewart uses on his camera to spy on his neighbors, is reportedly a 400mm prime telephoto, the magnification of which, would render it near impossible to use effectively without a tripod.
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The first German dubbing was created in 1955. After the rights to this movie reverted back to Alfred Hitchcock, all prints of this version were destroyed. When the film became available again in 1984, a new dubbing had to be created since the old version could not be located. It is presumed lost.
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Trade magazines of the time reported the world premiere was Aug 4, 1954 at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City. The Aug 1 date given in the "release dates" section may be erroneous.
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The only film in which Grace Kelly is seen with a cigarette. She refused to smoke in films, except this once.
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Director Cameo
Alfred Hitchcock:
about a half hour into the film, winding the clock in the songwriter's apartment. The songwriter is real-life songwriter Ross Bagdasarian, creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks.
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Spoilers
Other than a couple of shots near the end and the discovery of the dead dog, all the shots in the movie originate from Jeff's apartment.
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The film was inspired in part by the real-life murder case of Patrick Mahon. In 1924, in Sussex, England, Mahon murdered his pregnant mistress, Emily Kaye, and dismembered her body. In the modern interview, Alfred Hitchcock claimed that Mahon threw the body parts out of a train window piece by piece and burned the head in his fireplace. Another modern source, however, states that Mahon quartered the body and stored it in a large trunk, then removed internal organs, putting some in biscuit tins and a hatbox and boiling others on the stove.
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In addition to Mahon, Alfred Hitchcock noted in the modern interview that the 1910 case of Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen also served as an inspiration for the film. Crippen, an American living in London, poisoned his wife and cut up her body, then told police that she had moved to Los Angeles. Crippen was eventually caught after his secretary, with whom he was having an affair, was seen wearing Mrs. Crippen's jewelry, and a family friend searched unsuccessfully for Mrs. Crippen in California. After Scotland Yard became involved, Crippen and his mistress fled England under false names and were apprehended on an ocean liner. Police found parts of Mrs. Crippen's body in her cellar.
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The book that Lisa is reading at the end is an actual book, "Beyond the High Himalayas" by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.
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