20 Things You Somehow Missed In Alfred Hitchcock Movies
8. The Apartment Complex Isn't Real - Rear Window
The entirety of Rear Window was based on one set – a set which was built specifically for the movie, and it required months of planning and construction.
The apartment-courtyard set measured 98 feet wide, 185 feet long, and forty feet high, and consisted of 31 apartments, eight of which were completely furnished. The courtyard was set 20 - 30 feet below stage level, and some of the buildings were the equivalent of five or six-stories high. At the time, it was the largest indoor set at Paramount Studios.
There was a carefully designed lighting set-up, made up of a thousand lights, which were in place for various times of the day, to replicate the look of natural daylight, as well as a moving sunrise/sunlight.