The film, a critical success that was shot on location in New York City, was produced by Frederic Ullman Jr. for $210,000 but earned much more, making it a box-office hit for RKO Pictures.

For his performances in this film and in So Dear to My Heart, Bobby Driscoll was presented with a miniature Oscar statuette as the outstanding juvenile actor of 1949 at the 1950 Academy Awards ceremony.

Late one night, while trying to sleep on the building fire escape, he sees his two seemingly normal neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Kellerson, murder a drunken sailor in their apartment.

Tommy pushes a rafter aside, causing it to collapse and send Kellerson falling to his death, but the young boy is left stranded on the remainder of the beam suspended many stories above the ground.

[6] Mel Dinelli, who had written The Spiral Staircase for RKO production chief Dore Schary, adapted the story for the screen, and the movie was given the title of The Window.

Occasionally, the director overdoes things a bit in striving for shock effects, such as when the half-conscious boy teeters on the rail of a fire-escape or is trapped on a high beam in an abandoned house on the verge of collapse.

Indeed, there is such an acute expression of peril etched on the boy's face and reflected by his every movement as he flees death in the crumbling house that one experiences an overwhelming anxiety for his safety.

This film noir thriller exploits the meaning of the American dream to work hard for all the material things that were becoming available and ultimately find a utopia in the suburbs, as it cries out for the children left to their own devices to survive in such harsh surroundings as their parents have become too busy to raise them properly.

[12]TV Guide in its 2008 assessment also praised the thriller, especially Tetzlaff's highly effective composition of scenes and his direction of the camera:...this incredibly tense nail-biter stars Driscoll as a young boy who has a habit of crying wolf...The Window presents a frightening vision of helplessness, vividly conveying childish frustration at being dismissed or ignored by one's parents.

Having photographed Hitchcock's Notorious just three years before, Tetzlaff had, without a shadow of a doubt, learned something of his suspense-building craft from the master of that art (as did just about every working director)...An exceptional film.