Rope

Rope (1948)

Runtime: 80 minutes

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring: John Dall, Farley Granger, James Stewart, Edith Evanson, Joan Chandler

From: Transatlantic Pictures

As it's been too long since I had last watched any Hitchcock, I figured it was time to see one; this is a movie I had last watched over 10 years ago, so this was a good one to see. My Letterboxd review is below: 

Somehow, for pretty much the past 365 days I had only seen two Hitchcock films, one of them being a movie I have watched quite a few times in my life (Psycho); I can't explain it either. I'll try to be more active on that front in the future. So, that's why I decided to watch one of his films last night, and I picked this one as I had only seen it once and that was like 13 years ago or so.

I know that everyone is familiar with the plot of how two young men murder an “inferior” pal as they're rich intellectuals and they wanted to commit “the perfect murder” and they hold a party with the body hidden in a wooden chest and they think that none of the guests (even their old headmaster at their prep school, Rupert) will figure it out. It sounds crazy... except that the general idea of the plot actually happened-in 1924 two University of Chicago students named Leopold and Loeb murdered a 14 year old as they thought they were intellectually superior and thus they thought they didn't have to be punished for the crime... they were wrong. Several other movies were made about the case but I haven't watched any of them.

The aspect that seems rather obvious now in 2016-likely it was more subtle when it was released was the homosexual subtext; Leopold and Loeb were two men, homosexual lovers, and there are plenty of hints dropped in the film that the two murderers (Brandon and Phillip) are a couple, some of them quite obvious if you're looking for it. The fact that the guy who played Brandon (John Dall) actually was a homosexual in real life had to be a reason why there were those overtones throughout. I am not quite sure what the subplot about “strangling chickens” on the farm was about as it sounded so random for characters of that social class, unless... you probably don't need to be Freud to understand what I am alluding to!

The other noteworthy thing about the movie is that it was filmed all in long takes, and it was all on one set and the 80 minute movie takes place in a 100 minute timespan. As this was based on a stage play by Patrick Hamilton, I was fine with how this ended up being a filmed stage play, but just referring to it as that seems to diminish how they built the set so it could be moved around and how the large camera of the time was not static at all so it is still interesting to watch when it comes to cinematography. Also, the background of New York City that changes color as the sun sets is pretty great.

While I could quibble about some things (which is why I don't rate it as high as, say, Rear Window), overall this is a very good movie and one that is better than I remembered it being. The supporting characters are fine but it's the leads of Brandon, Phillip and Rupert that are all dynamic and make this thrilling to me. I pretty much did not pay attention to any of the cuts as I was invested in the story and enjoyed how Phillip was a nervous wreck, Brandon was such a cocky little D-bag (but acted nervous around his headmaster, which makes you wonder if they had a relationship before), and Rupert was a wise scholar who noticed the obvious hints that Brandon dropped and Dall, Farley Granger and the legendary James Stewart all delivered quality performances; I heard that Stewart felt disappointed by the movie and his performance but respectfully I disagree. His monologue at the end at how it was delivered was outstanding.

There are so many quality Hitch movies so this may get lost in the shuffle among the most famous entries (at least among the Joe Q. Public moviegoer) but this is more than just a wacky gimmick that he was able to pull off; at least for me it was a very entertaining story that made the 80 minutes fly by in a flash.