The 1950s were a true golden age for Alfred Hitchcock. He started the decade with Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder, and ended it with Vertigo, North by Northwest, and eventually Psycho. And right in the middle, in 1954, he made Rear Window—a classic, typically claustrophobic Hitchcock type thriller; about an incapacitated photojournalist who believes he witnesses a murder in his neighbor’s apartment.
Filmed at Paramount Studios, the movie demanded one of the biggest and most complex sets the lot had ever seen; it even included a drainage system, to allow for several mood-setting scenes to be filmed in a pouring rainstorm.
James Stewart and Grace Kelly took on the lead roles, both in their second Hitchcock movies. Kelly was so keen to work with Hitchcock again that she famously turned down a role in On the Waterfront—a role that went on to win Eve Marie Saint an Oscar—to appear in Rear Window. The role of suspicious, murderous neighbor Lars Thorwald meanwhile was taken on by Raymond Burr, who would go on to be known to generations of fans as TV’s Ironside and Perry Mason. In creating the character of Lars Thorwald, however, Hitchcock reportedly had someone else in mind.
After moving to Hollywood in 1939, Hitchcock worked alongside legendary producer David O. Selznick for almost a decade. Despite producing Rebecca together—that won Selznick the 1940 Oscar for Best Picture—the pair never got on, and Hitchcock repeatedly accused Selznick of meddling too much with his movies and projects. Their contract together ended in 1947, so by the 1950s Hitchcock was free to flex his creative muscles a little more—and, for that matter, enjoy a little bit of revenge.
Hitchcock decided that Raymond Burr’s character Thorwald should wear glasses—and famously gave him a pair to wear that looked precisely like David O Selznick’s. He also gave him a curly gray wig, much like Selznick’s own hair, and had Burr replicate certain mannerisms that mirrored Selznick’s own. All in all, as a parting gesture to his former colleague, Hitchcock essentially portrayed him on screen as a mysterious, devious, suspicious potential murderer. Needless to say, there was little love lost between them…