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Notes for Rear Window (1954)
The Cornell Woolrich short story on which this film was based was first published in 1942 under the title "It Had to Be Murder." Prior to the film's production, the story was republished twice under the title "Rear Window." A December 1988 Daily Variety article notes that in 1945, Woolrich assigned the story's rights to B. G. DeSylva Productions, which in turn sold their interest to Paramount. According to a 1953 Variety news item, Joshua Logan and Leland Hayward were the original owners of the story rights and, in July 1953, made a deal with producer-director Alfred Hitchcock and actor James Stewart to produce the picture. Warner Bros. was announced as the film's probable distributor at that time.
As noted in 1983 studio publicity material and a modern interview with Hitchcock, the film was inspired in part by the real-life murder case of Patrick Mahon. Modern sources disagree about specific aspects of the case, but generally concur that in 1924, in Sussex, England, Mahon murdered his pregnant mistress, Emily Kaye, and dismembered her body. In the modern interview, 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.
In addition to Mahon, 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.
According to studio production notes, 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. Because most of the shots were from "Jeff's" point of view, many camera lenses were employed, including a new ten-inch lens, which duplicated the view of a still camera telephoto lens. Actors portraying Jeff's neighbors, who are seen mostly in long shots, received their cues via short-wave radios and hidden microphones, according to production notes. Although production notes claim that Hitchcock ended up with only 100 feet of outtakes, modern sources state that the director demanded 27 takes of one shot of "Lisa" giving Jeff a kiss.
According to a November 30, 1953 Hollywood Reporter news item, Joy Lansing was cast in the picture, but she did not appear in the final film. Hitchcock, who appeared briefly in all of his pictures in some way, is seen in Rear Window winding a clock in the composer's apartment. All of the songs and instrumentals in the picture, except the composer's piece, "Lisa," are heard as radio broadcasts. Bing Crosby sings "To See You," a song he performed in Paramount's 1952 film The Road to Bali . Some modern historians have speculated that Hitchcock had actor Raymond Burr dye his hair gray and wear glasses for his role as the killer, "Lars Thorwald," to make him resemble producer David O. Selznick, to whom Hitchcock had been under contract for many years and with whom the director had an often contentious working relationship.
Rear Window was praised by critics and received the following Academy Award nominations: Best Director, Best Sound Recording (Loren L. Ryder, Sound Director), Best Writing (Screenplay) and Best Cinematography. In 1955, screenwriter John Michael Hayes, who wrote Hitchcock's 1955 release To Catch a Thief and the 1956 pictures The Trouble with Harry and The Man Who Knew Too Much (see entries above and below), received the Mystery Writers of America's "Best Mystery-Suspense Picture of the Year" award and was nominated for a Writers Guild award. In 1965, Hollywood Reporter announced that, unlike George Stevens' A Place in the Sun , Rear Window would not be cut for its first showing on television because Hitchcock had made a "special pact" with the NBC network.
According to May 1974, April 1984 and December 1988 Daily Variety articles, when Patron, Inc., the film's production company, dissolved in 1960, the rights to the film were dispersed to Patron's stockholders, who included Hitchcock, Stewart and Universal Pictures. In December 1969, after Woolrich's death, the Chase Manhattan Bank, acting as agent for the author's estate, renewed the copyright to the short story "Rear Window." In early 1972, Sheldon Abend, the owner of Authors Research Co. and American Play Co., bought the rights to "Rear Window" from Chase for $650, plus ten percent of all proceeds from its exploitation.
In 1974, according to the Daily Variety articles, Abend filed his first copyright infringement lawsuits involving Rear Window. That year, Abend sued Hitchcock, Stewart and Universal for $2,000,000 in connection with an ABC network broadcast of the film, and for $500,000 in connection with a segment of the Touch of Evil television series, in which footage from the film was used. Abend argued that the defendants had violated 1909 copyright law when they allowed the film to be broadcast without negotiating a deal with him, the short story's legal owner. By the 1909 law, a copyright claim was good for only twenty-eight years but could be renewed by the author or his heirs for an additional twenty-eight years. (In 1978, the copyright law was amended to extend the initial copyright period to seventy-five years.) In his suit, Abend contended that despite Woolrich's promise to renew the copyright, the claim was not renewed by him and therefore the defendants' use of the property was unauthorized. Abend settled out of court following a $25,000 dispensation, but the underlying copyright issues were left unresolved.
In April 1977, Daily Variety reported that actor Stuart Whitman had purchased the rights to remake the story from Abend, hoping to redo the tale as a two-hour television film, but that project never materialized. Rear Window remained out of circulation until October 1983, when it was re-released by Universal/MCA two years after Hitchcock's death. An April 1983 Hollywood Reporter item stated that Hitchcock had "bought back" the rights to the film years before, but had so many demands regarding its re-issue, including control over which theaters it would be shown in, that no company wanted to re-release it. In April 1983, MCA acquired the rights to the picture from Hitchcock's estate, along with rights to several other of his films.
In April 1984, Abend filed a third complaint in the U.S. District Court for California against MCA, Hitchcock's estate and Stewart. In his 1984 suit, Abend attempted to recover monies earned on the 1983 re-issue, the grosses of which were estimated at $7,847,320. According to a December 1988 Daily Variety article, Judge Andrew Hauk of the District Court ruled in favor of the defendants, stating that a copyright renewal by the original copyright holder extended to heirs of the copyright holder. In December 1988, however, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court's decision in favor of Abend. As noted in the December 1988 Daily Variety article, the appeals court ruled that the rights renewal was "eliminated with the author's death." The appeals court did deny Abend's request that an injunction barring further distribution of the film be issued, noting that Woolrich's story played only a small part in the film's success. The court also pointed out the possible harm in denying the public "the opportunity to view a classic film for many years to come."
According to a March 1989 Hollywood Reporter article, in January 1989, MCA filed a petition for a rehearing of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' decision. Lawyers for MCA argued that, in addition to Rear Window, the appeals court's decision could have serious repercussions for many other films with underlying properties purchased prior to 1978, whose authors died without renewing, because it would prohibit not only re-releases, but video and television releases as well. In January 1990, the case was presented before the U.S. Supreme Court. In May 1990, the Supreme Court issued a six-to-three decision in favor of Abend. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote the majority opinion, stating that the picture could not be shown without permission of the short story's current copyright holder. At that time, the film had grossed over 12 million dollars.
In 1998, Rear Window was selected for the American Film Institute's 100 Years...100 Movies list, ranking number forty-two. In January 2000, a newly restored version of Rear Window was released theatrically. According to a January 2000 New Yorker article, Robert Harris and James Katz spent two years cleaning the film, frame by frame, and reprinting the negative using dye-transfer technology.
On November 21, 1998, a television version of Woolrich's story was broadcast on the ABC network. In the Hallmark Entertainment production, directed by Jeff Bleckner, actor Christopher Reeve, in his first leading role since being paralyzed in a horse-riding accident in 1995, played the Stewart character as a paralyzed architect, and Daryl Hannah played Reeve's love interest.
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