216. Rope

Rope (1948)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: James Stewart

John Dall

Farley Granger

IMDb Rating: 8

My Rating: 8

"Nobody commits a murder just for the experiment of commiting it. Nobody except us.

Brandon Shaw (John Dall) and Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) are attempting to pull off the perfect murder. So they strangle their friend David Kentley with a rope, and throw his body in a trunk in the middle of the living room. Brandon meets the death with a sense of accomplishment, where Phillip is instantly paranoid. To further boost their pride, the gentlemen throw a dinner party in David's honor, using the chest as the center piece to place all of the food on. They invite David's father and aunt, as well as David's fiancee. Also in attendance is Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), the former professor of Brandon and Phillip, who was the one who's obscure philosophies put the ideas in the mind of the murders. It doesn't take long before Brandon and Phillips suspicious actions catch the attention of Rupert, and he starts to place together the pieces of a puzzle that he may not ever understand.

One of the most remarkable things about Rope is that the entire film takes place in one room. The film is based on the play by Patrick Hamilton, and stays rather true to the spirit and material of the play. Director Alfred Hitchcock made the correct choice when he kept the film simple and didn't try and expand it past the walls of one room. By doing this, he kept each and every character within ten feet of the dead body at all times. This provided a consistent state of suspense that only built upon itself until the very end. This idea is very similar to Hitchcock's use of trains in his film, which basically traps his characters in one place with each other for long amounts of time. It's no secret that Hitchcock was the master of suspense, but never did he do so much with so very little.

Alfred Hitchcock's Rope came around the middle of his directing career, and is one of my favorite films from the director. It's one of his most original ideas and concepts. The performances are not particularly amazing, but are not terrible by any means. What really comes through with this film is writer Hume Cronyn's excellent screen adaptation and Hitchcock's amazing vision. It by no means holds a candle to Hitchcock's later, and much larger scale, works like Psycho and North By Northwest. Although Rope still stands on it's own as one of the finest efforts from one of film's great storytellers.