It Had to Be Murder
E421043
"It Had to Be Murder" is a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich about a man confined to his apartment who becomes convinced, through obsessive observation of his neighbors, that one of them has committed murder.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| It Had to Be Murder canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T4219532 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: It Had to Be Murder Context triple: [Rear Window, basedOn, It Had to Be Murder]
-
A.
A Slight Case of Murder
A Slight Case of Murder is a 1938 crime-comedy film starring Edward G. Robinson as a reformed bootlegger whose attempts to go straight lead to a series of comic mishaps.
-
B.
Murder Was the Case
Murder Was the Case is a 1994 hip hop soundtrack album and short film project centered on Snoop Doggy Dogg, featuring various West Coast rap artists and produced by Dr. Dre.
-
C.
A Blueprint for Murder
A Blueprint for Murder is a 1953 American film noir thriller in which Gary Merrill stars in a tense story of suspected poisoning and inheritance-driven murder.
-
D.
The Talk Show Murders
The Talk Show Murders is a mystery novel by comedian and television pioneer Steve Allen that blends show-business satire with a talk-show-themed whodunit plot.
-
E.
The Deadly Affair
The Deadly Affair is a 1966 British spy thriller film, adapted from John le Carré’s novel "Call for the Dead" and directed by Sidney Lumet.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: It Had to Be Murder Target entity description: "It Had to Be Murder" is a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich about a man confined to his apartment who becomes convinced, through obsessive observation of his neighbors, that one of them has committed murder.
-
A.
A Slight Case of Murder
A Slight Case of Murder is a 1938 crime-comedy film starring Edward G. Robinson as a reformed bootlegger whose attempts to go straight lead to a series of comic mishaps.
-
B.
Murder Was the Case
Murder Was the Case is a 1994 hip hop soundtrack album and short film project centered on Snoop Doggy Dogg, featuring various West Coast rap artists and produced by Dr. Dre.
-
C.
A Blueprint for Murder
A Blueprint for Murder is a 1953 American film noir thriller in which Gary Merrill stars in a tense story of suspected poisoning and inheritance-driven murder.
-
D.
The Talk Show Murders
The Talk Show Murders is a mystery novel by comedian and television pioneer Steve Allen that blends show-business satire with a talk-show-themed whodunit plot.
-
E.
The Deadly Affair
The Deadly Affair is a 1966 British spy thriller film, adapted from John le Carré’s novel "Call for the Dead" and directed by Sidney Lumet.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (32)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | short story ⓘ |
| adaptationDirector | Alfred Hitchcock ⓘ |
| adaptationLeadActor | James Stewart ⓘ |
| adaptationLeadActress | Grace Kelly ⓘ |
| adaptationReleaseYear | 1954 ⓘ |
| adaptationScreenwriter | John Michael Hayes ⓘ |
| adaptationTitleChange |
The film adaptation was retitled "Rear Window".
ⓘ
linked to:
Rear Window
|
| adaptationType | feature film ⓘ |
| adaptedAs | Rear Window ⓘ |
| alternateTitle | Rear Window ⓘ |
| author | Cornell Woolrich ⓘ |
| centralTheme |
obsession
ⓘ
urban isolation ⓘ voyeurism ⓘ |
| conflictType | man versus unknown neighbor suspected of murder ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| genre |
crime fiction
ⓘ
mystery fiction ⓘ suspense fiction ⓘ |
| hasMotiveForInvestigation | protagonist’s boredom and curiosity while housebound ⓘ |
| influenced | later works about surveillance and voyeurism in urban settings ⓘ |
| keyPlotDevice | binoculars and long-distance observation of neighbors ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainCharacter | Hal Jeffries ⓘ |
| narrativePerspective | first-person ⓘ |
| notableElement | use of a single confined viewpoint to observe multiple neighbors ⓘ |
| originalMedium | magazine publication ⓘ |
| partOfAuthorOeuvre | Cornell Woolrich suspense stories ⓘ |
| plotSummary | A man confined to his apartment becomes convinced, through obsessive observation of his neighbors, that one of them has committed murder. ⓘ |
| protagonistCondition | confined to his apartment ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1942 ⓘ |
| setting | New York City apartment building ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: It Had to Be Murder Description of subject: "It Had to Be Murder" is a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich about a man confined to his apartment who becomes convinced, through obsessive observation of his neighbors, that one of them has committed murder.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.