Rope (1948)

The premise of the story is interesting, in how the main characters, Brandon & Philip, kill an "inferior" person and then have a party with his body hidden in a chest in the apartment (which also doubled as a table for dinner!). Also, the very theatrical, experimental style of shooting the movie makes it highly interesting.

While not as exciting as "Psycho," this is a must-see for anyone interested in Hitchcock.


An experimental masterpiece   August 17, 2000
Elizabeth (Washington, DC United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Certainly, Rope is best known for two elements; the famous single shot takes and the fact that the basis for the movie was the Leopold-Loeb murders. But there is so much more to this brilliant film, my personal favorite of the Hitchcocks.

The passionate love triangle that consumes the three star players is fascinating. John Dall, the psychotic genius, desperate for the love and approval of his old house master. Farley Granger, who is rather stiff as an actor but is perfect as Philip, the pianist who would suppress his own artistic talents in order to please his wayward lover. And Jimmy Stewart, in a role that was turned down by Cary Grant presumably for the homosexual content, as the repressed Rupert who scoffs at a society that would scorn him.

Furthermore, the premise is utterly macabre, the suspense is terrifying and the cinematography is gorgeous. I get chills each time Brandon drops the rope into the drawer while the kitchen door swings open. I love this film, I recommend it highly.


Chilling and troubling suspense!   March 8, 2001
Bragan Thomas (NYC)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

ROPE has never been one of Hitchcock's most popular works - audiences in France and England actually demonstrated against the film when it was released in 1948, and it was banned in several regions of the US. Many historians have found the film cold and arid - a triumph of technique over content. When I first saw the film, I thought it too slow paced and rather talky (understandable for a film based on a stage play). A second viewing changed my mind completely. ROPE is one of Hitchcock's most intellectual and most disturbing works. The revolutionary technique is part of what makes this film so chilling. The ever-moving camera, which constantly floats, changes position and creates new compositions (often so subtly that you don't even realize it has moved), eventually seems to imprison the audience along with the characters, trapping us in a claustrophobic environment which we cannot escape. The dialogue is brilliant, laced with a large dose of incredibly black and campy humor which no one except the audience and the killers can really "get." As in the much later PSYCHO, Hitchcock uses ironic humor to force us to sympathize with criminals and madmen - we know that Brandon and Philip are murderers from the opening moments, yet (perversely) we don't want them to get caught. The camera often directs our attention to a visual moment which is in direct opposition to the dialogue, and this disruption between what we see and what we hear creates further anxiety. Look for the incredible sequence where we watch (helpless to interfere) while the maid slowly clears the chest where dinner has been served on top of David's dead body. While we watch her go back and forth, the offscreen guests keep rambling on about the missing David's possible whereabouts (which we know very well). I gasped aloud when I realized that she was eventually going to open the chest unless someone stopped her. When Brandon prevented her from opening the lid (just in the nick of time), I sighed with relief - and this manipulation of our sympathies is Hitchcock's brilliant achievement in ROPE. I suspect that many viewers find the film unsatisfying because they are unable to see the humor and wit which coexists with psychosis and the macabre. ROPE is also a comedy of manners at some level - the incredibly WASP-y milieu of the upper-class characters seems so closed, so dry, and so devoid of genuine emotion, but rage, violence and sexual frustration seethe beneath the oh-so-polished surface of this decadent society party. Considering that the film was made when the Nuremberg trials were still happening, it is hard not to see ROPE as a comment on the seductive powers of evil, and the fatal allure of thinking that one belongs to a "superior" group. ROPE is not a movie with great "set-pieces" or quick and easy shocks, but this film has lingered in my mind for a longer period than many modern horror films. The more you think about this film, the more frightening it becomes. Don't they always say about serial killers that "they seemed perfectly normal?" ROPE'S glossy surface conceals a brilliant discourse on the thin line between normal and "abnormal." Don't just watch this movie once - see it twice, and then let it sink in!


Hitchcock's Most Overlooked Film   December 1, 2001
Elaine R. Meyer (Wilmette, IL United States)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful

Alfred Hitchcock was brilliant at creating the perfect atmosphere in his films, and in this respect, Rope does not dissapoint. In Rope, just as in Hitchcock's Psycho (1960), the camera carries us to one mere window of an apartment in a big city (here, it is New York). For one hour and thirty minutes, we will watch as Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) host a dinner party for the family and friends of the former schoolmate that they have murdered that very day. Although Hitchcock has forfeited most of his intricate camera direction (Rope, as an experiment, was filmed with as few camera cuts as possible), the placing and movements of the actors around Brandon and Phillip's Manhattan apartment are impressively coordinated. Though subtle, this masterful direction has a palpable effect on Rope's edgy, mysterious atmosphere. Although Hitchcock wanted Cary Grant for the part of Rupert Cadell, Brandon and Phillip's housemaster from their prepratory school days, Grant turned down the role and James Stewart got the part. Today, it is hard to imagine anyone besides Stewart as Rupert, though one can only wonder how Grant would have acted it. Stewart's ability to balance cynicism and warmth, humor and graveness, is impressive. The script is excellent. The dialogue is witty and rolls of the tounges of these characters. The use of double entendre is particularly humorous. The DVD features are pretty good. There is a half hour documentary on the making of the film featuring Hume Cronyn, who did the script treatment for Rope, Arthur Laurents, who wrote the screenplay, Farley Granger, and Patricia Hitchcock O'Connell, Alfred Hitchcock's daugther. Also included: a clever trailer for Rope and many production photos. It would have been interesting to have a film commentary. Hopefully, this film will attract a critical and commerical renaissance of sorts, as was the case with Hitchock's Vertigo (1958).