A psychoanalytic investigation of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window reveals that this film is essentially grounded on the coalescence of two convergent psychic mechanisms, an intense fear of object loss which echoes over and over again throughout the film and a sadistically interpreted primal scene. It is suggested that this fusion may have been enhanced by the existence of a very important psychological link between these mechanisms in the fact that frequently primal scene exposure may activate separation anxiety. The genetic connexion between fear of object loss and the development of scopophilic tendencies is discussed and pertinent literature on the subject is presented. Finally, the origins and the operation of the above mechanisms is examined in Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic work, in his character structure and in his life history.