Rear Window

The Making of a Hitchcock Masterpiece in the Hollywood Golden Age

By: Jennifer O'Callaghan

Narrated by: Christine Williams

Before the internet and social media offered voyeuristic glimpses into the lives of others, the acclaimed Master of Suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, exposed the dangers and delights of looking—and knowing—too much in his 1954 masterpiece Rear Window. Hailed as one of the greatest films ever made, it stars James Stewart and Grace Kelly but, in an unusual gamble, is shot entirely from within a Greenwich Village apartment.

Hitchcock forces his audience to participate in his protagonist's voyeuristic impulses and darkest obsessions—a bold move in the era of the Hollywood Blacklist and restrictive Hays Code. But the gamble paid off, and Rear Window became a timeless classic. This book goes straight to the source of Rear Window's genius by mining the papers of Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, and Thelma Ritter, revealing little-known facts behind the scenes: Why taking the role of Lisa was one of the toughest decisions Grace Kelly ever made; How Hitchcock intertwined suspense and romance with inspiration from Ingrid Bergman; How he used a topless scene to distract censors from other scenes to which they may have objected; and how Hitchcock crafted the film's unforgettable villain by modeling him on a producer he loathed.

This exciting book pulls back the curtain on a classic thriller that's as relevant today as ever—and every bit as thrilling.

©2025 Jennifer O'Callaghan (P)2025 Tantor Media

Rear Window movie vs short story source

One aspect of the making of Rear Window that wasn’t mentioned in this book was the transformation of the source short story’s African American male servant to becoming the glamorous girlfriend of Jeff, In the story, It Had To Be Murder by Cornell Woolrich, the servant Sam is sent to do all the risky snooping that Jeff is unable to do, with all the kind of jitteryness and reluctance that characterized black servants in suspense settings of the era. The change to a willing and enthusiastic girlfriend also made the Jeff character less creepy. I would have liked to know how that change evolved.
The reader of the book has an ultra cheery smiley voice that I found forced but the content was interesting enough to tolerate the sound.
I learned how the movie Rear Window came to be the great film it is and that was enlightening.

An abundance of insights and details. Awful delivery.

An abundance of fascinating insights and details, though meandering and repetitive. The voice talent’s needlessly undulating, choppy delivery made 10 hours of listening almost impossible. Her soft-spokenness is terribly misguided, unnecessary and particularly annoying, as is her speaking through smiling lips, winking and a raised eyebrow. She also puts stress on the wrong words. Had to take continuous half-hour breaks from this narrator’s ill-conceived, sing-songy interpretation to give my poor brain a rest. The obnoxious, unprofessional delivery drops my rating of the audio version of this book from five stars to three.

Feminist Take On Everything

Better history/ biographies of Mr. Hitchcock found else where. .. as for this book, just the movies please without the personal, political interpretation. Contrary to the author's belief system, most viewers are interested in the the pure cinema and cinema experience not revised new age history.

The narrator had a pleasant enough voice but her mis-pronunciation of the possessive case was so annoying and distracting ..Jeffries' not Jeffireezeze. Narrators could benefit from a speech class in order to learn correct pronunciation. ..or at least have editors step in to clean up the narration. I have read many good books on Audible, but pronunciation is an Audible/narrator issue.