Rope (1948)

Two young men strangle their "inferior" classmate, hide his body in their apartment, and invite his friends and family to a dinner party as a means to challenge the "perfection" of their crime.

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Hume Cronyn (adapted by), Patrick Hamilton (from the play by),

Stars:

Dick Hogan, John Dall, Farley Granger

Top 250 #205 | 3 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Dick Hogan	...	David Kentley
John Dall	...	Brandon - His Friend
Farley Granger	...	Phillip - His Friend
Edith Evanson	...	Mrs. Wilson - Their Housekeeper
Douglas Dick	...	Kenneth - Their Rival
Joan Chandler	...	Janet - David's Girl
Cedric Hardwicke	...	Mr. Kentley - David's Father (as Sir Cedric Hardwicke)
Constance Collier	...	Mrs. Atwater - David's Aunt
James Stewart	...	Rupert Cadell

Storyline

Brandon and Philip are two young men who share a New York apartment. They consider themselves intellectually superior to their friend David Kentley and as a consequence decide to murder him. Together they strangle David with a rope and placing the body in an old chest, they proceed to hold a small party. The guests include David's father, his fiancée Janet and their old schoolteacher Rupert from whom they mistakenly took their ideas. As Brandon becomes increasingly more daring, Rupert begins to suspect.

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Plot Keywords:

party | friend | murder | apartment | chest | 

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Taglines:

Nothing ever held you like Alfred Hitchcock's Rope

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

28 August 1948 (USA)

Also Known As:

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope

Filming Locations:

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Warner Bros., Transatlantic Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

80 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Filmed January 12-February 21 1948. There are 10 shots within the film overall, running 9:34, 7:51, 7:18, 7:09, 9:59, 8:35, 7:50, 10:06, 4:37 and 5:40 minutes:seconds each.

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Goofs

During the tussle between Philip and Rupert, the gun fires and injures Rupert's hand. Following which Rupert takes his handkerchief to tie his wound. But he only manages to loosely hold it in his left arm. Then, when he walks over to the chest and opens it, shot the handkerchief is perfectly wrapped around Rupert's wounded arm.

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Quotes

Phillip Morgan: I never strangled a chicken in my life!

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Crazy Credits

Most of the characters in the movie are listed in their relation to David, a character who is only seen for a couple of seconds, and has no lines in movie. The only person who isn't listed in reference to David is James Stewart's character.

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Connections

Referenced in Murder by Numbers (2002)

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Soundtracks

"I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover"
(1928) (uncredited)
Music by Harry M. Woods
Played on the radio by The Three Suns when Rupert is talking to Mrs. Wilson

User Reviews

Innovation can't quite make this a masterpiece - but it's still worth watching

'Rope', as many reviews here point out, is shot in a "real time" format. The movie lasts 80 minutes and takes place over a period of 80 minutes - with 10 8 minute takes spliced together smartly (such as switching when focused on a back) to give the appearance of one long take. Even current "real time" dramas such as "Nick of Time" or "24" use cuts - and perhaps justifiably.

"Rope" is about two college students - the slimy Brendon Shaw (John Dall) and his friend and sub-texted-gay-partner Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) who murder an old college mate and then, minutes after, host a dinner party to prove their calm, intellectual superiority and their "right" to kill off the lower echelons of society - they believe they are exempt from common morality. Central to this is their smug desire to show off their theory to their old mentor, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is attending the party, and to get him to agree with their theories.

As the movie is essentially confined to one room, and one take, there's a definite "play" feel to the movie. While this worked wonderful with "12 Angry Men", the script and character interaction isn't quite smart enough here to sustain it. There's a lot of pontificating by Shaw, and some fine retorts by Cadell but there's a sense of forcedness about it at the same time. Only 3 of the characters are drawn with enough conviction, and it is only Cadell who we can really admire (Granger's Morgan seems to be too much of a nervous twitching type to add much to the movie). The script does allow us to gape with incredulity at the Nietzsche-esque theories of the "superman" espoused by Shaw, and the gay subtext is amusingly, and cleverly, done but there's an inevitability about the whole story - we know what will happen, it does, and this creates an ultimate lack of tension (when compared to, for example, Hitchock's "Vertigo").

The direction is, as would be expected, smart and - naturally - innovative here. The camera drifts about from character to character, as Hitchock tries his "one cut" approach, and there's some nice background detail (such as Hitchcock's flashing neon signs) to show the passage of time/current theme. Overall "Rope" is well worth seeing - it's not quite a failed experiment, nor a successful one. It's a "curio" which is worth appreciating for realizing why it was never really emulated since.