Rating: PG
Genre:
Thriller
Release Date: 06/20/2006
Dubbed: English/French/Espanol
Sound: DDM2.0
Run Time: 81 Minutes
Flags: Violence, Not For Children
Distributor/Studio: MCA Home Video
Rope,
Alfred Hitchcock's first color film, was adapted from
Patrick Hamilton's stage play
Rope's End by no less than
Hume Cronyn. Loosely inspired by the
Leopold-
Loeb case, the plot concerns two implicitly homosexual college chums, played by
Farley Granger and
John Dall. Their heads filled with
Nietzchean philosophy by their kindly professor
James Stewart,
Granger and
Dall kill a third friend just for the thrill of it. The boys hide the body in an antique chest in the middle of their posh apartment, then perversely arrange to hold a dinner party around the chest, inviting the victim's family, friends and fiancee (
Joan Chandler), as well as their intellectual role-model
Stewart. As the guests wander obliviously around the sealed chest, the killers make snippy, veiled comments about their deed--never going so far as to reveal the existence of the body nor their involvement in the murder. As all the guests file out, however, professor
Stewart begins to suspect that something is amiss. In
Rope,
Hitchcock attempted the daunting technical challenge of filming the entire picture in one long, seemingly uninterrupted take. Actually, there are several edits in the movie: since a reel of film was divided into two ten-minute minireels back in 1948, the internal reel-breaks are "fudged" by having a dark object briefly obscure the camera lens, sustaining the illusion that no editing has taken place.
~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
;)
