Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Cornell Woolrich (story) and John Michael Hayes (screenplay).

L.B. Jeffries

• [regarding Thorwald] That's no ordinary look. That's the kind of a look a man gives when he's afraid somebody might be watching him.

Stella

• The New York State sentence for a Peeping Tom is six months in the work house...They got no windows in the work house. You know, in the old days, they used to put your eyes out with a red-hot poker. Any of those bikini bombshells you're always watchin' worth a red-hot poker? Oh dear, we've become a race of Peeping Toms. What people ought to do is get outside their own house and look in for a change. Yes, sir. How's that for a bit of home-spun philosophy?

Dialogue

Jeff: You've got to get me out of here. Six weeks sitting in a two-room apartment with nothing to do but look out the window at the neighbors. ..If you don't pull me out of this swamp of boredom, I'm gonna do something drastic...like what? I'm gonna get married and then I'll never be able to go anywhere.

Editor: It's about time you got married, before you turn into a lonesome, bitter old man.

Jeff: Yeah, can't you just see me, rushin' home to a hot apartment to listen to the automatic laundry and the electric dishwasher and the garbage disposal, the nagging wife.

Editor: Jeff, wives don't nag, they discuss.

Jeff: Is that so, that so? Maybe in the high rent district they discuss, in my neighborhood they still nag.

Editor: Well, um, you know best.

Stella: I got a nose for trouble. I can smell it ten miles away...I can smell trouble right here in this apartment. First you smash your leg. Then you get to lookin' out the window. See things you shouldn't see. Trouble. I can see you in court now, surrounded by a bunch of lawyers in double-breasted suits. You're pleading: 'Judge, it was only a little bit of innocent fun. I love my neighbors like a father.' And the Judge says, 'Well, congratulations, you've just given birth to three years in Dannemora.'

Jeff: Yeah, right now I'd welcome trouble...You know, I think you're right. I think there is going to be trouble around here.

Stella: ...What kind of trouble?

Jeff: Lisa Fremont.

Stella: Are you kidding? She's a beautiful young girl and you're a reasonably healthy young man.

Jeff: She expects me to marry her.

Stella: That's normal.

Jeff: I don't want to.

Stella: That's abnormal.

Jeff: I'm just not ready for marriage.

Stella: Every man's ready for marriage when the right girl comes along. And Lisa Fremont is the right girl for any man with half a brain who can get one eye open.

Jeff: Oh, she's all right.

Stella: What did you do? Have a fight?

Jeff: No.

Stella: Her father loading up the shotgun?

Jeff: What? Please, Stella.

Stella: It's happened before you know. Some of the world's happiest marriages have, uh, started under the gun, as you might say.

Lisa: Where does a girl have to go before you notice her ?

Jeff: Well if she's pretty enough, she doesn't have to go anywhere. She just has to be.

Lisa: Well, ain't I? Pay attention to me.

Jeff: Well, I'm, I'm not exactly on the other side of the room.

Lisa: Your mind is. When I want a man, I want all of you.

Jeff: I've seen it through that window. I've seen bickering and family quarrels and mysterious trips at night, knives and saws and ropes, and now since last evening, not a sign of the wife. All right, now you tell me where she is...

Lisa: Maybe he's leaving his wife, I don't know, I don't care. Lots of people have knives and saws and ropes around their houses and lots of men don't speak to their wives all day. Lots of wives nag and men hate them and trouble starts. But very very few of them end up in murder if that's what you're thinking.

Jeff: It's pretty hard for you to keep away from that word isn't it?

Lisa: You could see all that he did, couldn't you?

Jeff: Of course, I...

Lisa: You could see because the shades were up and, and he walked along the corridor and the street and the back yard. Oh Jeff, do you think a murderer would let you see all that? That he wouldn't pull the shades down and hide behind them?

Jeff: Just where he's being clever. He's being nonchalant about things...

Lisa: Oh, and that's where you're not being clever. A murderer would never parade his crime in front of an open window.

Jeff: Why not?

Lisa: [pointing to the newlyweds' window] Why, for all you know, there's probably something a lot more sinister going on behind those windows.

Jeff: Where? Oh, no comment.

Lisa: It doesn't make sense to me...Women aren't that unpredictable...A woman has a favorite handbag and it always hangs on her bedpost where she can get at it easily. And then all of a sudden, she goes away on a trip and leaves it behind. Why?

Jeff: Because she didn't know she was going on a trip. And where she's going she wouldn't need the handbag.

Lisa: Yes, but only her husband would know that. And that jewelry. Women don't keep their jewelry in a purse, getting all twisted and scratched and tangled up.

Jeff: Well, do they hide it in their husbands' clothes?

Lisa: They do not. And they don't leave it behind either. Why, a woman going anywhere but the hospital would always take makeup, perfume, and jewelry...That's basic equipment. And you don't leave it behind in your husband's drawer in your favorite handbag.

Lisa: [Listening to the composer play his piano] Where does a man get inspiration to write a song like that? It's utterly beautiful. Wish I could be creative.

Jeff: Oh sweetie, you are. You have a great talent for creating difficult situations.

Lisa: I do?

Jeff: Sure. Staying here all night, uninvited.

Lisa: Surprise is the most important element of attack. And besides, you're not up on your private eye literature. When they're in trouble, it's always their Girl Friday who gets them out of it.

Jeff: Well, is she the girl that saves him from the clutches of the seductive showgirls and the overpassionate daughters of the rich?

Lisa: The same.

Jeff: That's the one, huh? It's funny, he never ends up marrying her, does he, huh? That's strange.

Lisa: Weird.

Jeff: You know, much as I hate to give Thomas J. Doyle too much credit, he might have gotten ahold of something when he said that was pretty private stuff going on out there. I wonder if it is ethical to watch a man with binoculars and a long-focus lens. Do you, do you suppose it's ethical even if you prove that he didn't commit a crime?

Lisa: I'm not much on rear-window ethics.

Jeff: Of course, they can do the same thing to me. Watch me like a bug under a glass if they want to.

Lisa: Jeff, you know if someone came in here, they wouldn't believe what they'd see.

Jeff: What?

Lisa: You and me with long faces, plunged into despair because we find out a man didn't kill his wife. We're two of the most frightening ghouls I've ever known. You'd think we could be a little bit happier that the poor woman is alive and well. Whatever happened to that old saying: 'Love thy neighbor'?

Jeff: You know, I think I'll start reviving that tomorrow. I'll begin with 'Miss Torso.'

Lisa: Not if I have to move in to an apartment across the way and do the Dance of the Seven Veils every hour. [She lowers the blinds] The show's over for tonight. [She picks up her overnight kit of lingerie] Preview of coming attractions.

Taglines

• Suspense of screaming proportions!

• See It! - If your nerves can stand it after Psycho!

• The most unusual and intimate journey into human emotions ever filmed !

• It only takes one witness to spoil the perfect crime.

• Seeing isn't always believing.

Cast

• James Stewart - L. B. Jefferies
• Grace Kelly - Lisa Carol Fremont
• Wendell Corey - Det. Lt. Thomas J. Doyle
• Thelma Ritter - Stella
• Raymond Burr - Lars Thorwald
• Judith Evelyn - Miss Lonelyheart
• Ross Bagdasarian - Songwriter
• Georgine Darcy - Miss Torso
• Sara Berner - Wife living above Thorwalds
• Frank Cady - Husband living above Thorwalds