Rear Window is based on a story from the February 1942 issue of Dime Detective Magazine called "It Had to be Murder", written by Cornell Woolrich (under the pseudonym William Irish). Alfred Hitchcock, who was a longtime fan of Woolrich's pulp thrillers, was taken by the piece, but his goal in adapting it for the screen was to unify the narrative. Jeff doesn't have a girlfriend in Woolrich's version - Hitchcock and screenwriter John Michael Hayes added that in. They also invented Jeff's job as a photojournalist, thinking that it would ease his transition into a voyeur. Besides that, the final plot of Rear Window remains fairly close to Woolrich's original work.
Before Hayes started writing the script for Rear Window, Hitchcock insisted that
Before Hayes started writing the script for Rear Window, Hitchcock insisted that