American Cinematographer - January 1990 - 36
Hitchcock's Techniques Tell
Rear Window Story
by David Atkinson, PhD
Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 suspense thriller Rear Win¬
dow is one of the late director's most masterful and
enduring motion pictures. Indeed, its endurance is
well illustrated by the fact that when the film was
re-released theatrically in London in 1983, after
being unseen for more than a decade, many British
film critics considered it the best film of the year. The
film is a visual and aural treat featuring a first-rate
cast, and the making of the film presented Hitchcock
and his talented production crew with numerous
unique challenges.
In the
summer
then Hitchcock's
of 1953, Lew Wasserman,
agent at MCA, arranged a deal
with Paramount Pictures for the director to make a
34
American
Cinematographer
total of nine films (as it turned out, he only made
six). The unusual contract called for the rights of five
of these films to revert to Hitchcock eight years after
their initial release. Rear Window was the first film
that the director made under the Paramount con¬
tract and was one of those to which he would even¬
tually own the rights, the others being The Trouble
With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much (Hitch¬
cock's 1956 remake of his 1934 British production),
Vertigo, and Psycho.
Hitchcock had been planning Rear Window
during the filming of Dial 'M' For Murder at Warner
Brothers. He had acquired the film rights to a 1942
short story by the mystery author Cornell Woolrich
January 1990
American Cinematographer - January 1990
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