“ Rear Window” (1954) gave Stewart a pair of binoculars and, in a virtuoso sequence, had him piece together a possible murder out of clues glimpsed through windows.
Fascinated by the technical side of the movies, Hitchcock worked meticulously on his scripts, hiring artists to draw storyboards of every shot; he claimed when the screenplay was finished, it was all downhill. He set himself technical challenges. “Lifeboat” (1944) took place entirely within a small boat, and “ Rope” (1948) was knitted together out of unbroken 10- minute takes, so it looked like the whole movie was made in one shot. “ Rear Window” (1954) gave Stewart a pair of binoculars and, in a virtuoso sequence, had him piece together a possible murder out of clues glimpsed through windows. In “ Psycho” (1960), Hitchcock played with audience expectations by focusing entirely on a big star (Leigh) before killing her off a third of the way through the movie.