Amazon.com video review:
An experimental film masquerading as a standard Hollywood
thriller. The plot of Rope is simple and based on a successful
stage play: two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) commit
murder, more or less as an intellectual exercise. They hide the body
in their large apartment, then throw a dinner party. Will the body be
discovered? Director Alfred Hitchcock, fascinated by the possibilities
of the long-take style, decided to shoot this story as though it were
happening in one long, uninterrupted shot. Since the camera can only
hold one 10-minute reel at a time, Hitchcock had to be creative when
it came time to change reels, disguising the switches as the camera
passed behind someone's back or moved behind a lamp. In later years
Hitchcock wrote off the approach as misguided, and Rope may not
be one of Hitchcock's top movies, but it's still a nail-biter. They
don't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing. James Stewart, as
a suspicious professor, marks his first starring role for Hitchcock, a
collaboration that would lead to the masterpieces Rear Window
and Vertigo. --Robert
Horton
Amazon.com video review:
An experimental film masquerading as a standard Hollywood
thriller. The plot of Rope is simple and based on a successful
stage play: two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) commit
murder, more or less as an intellectual exercise. They hide the body
in their large apartment, then throw a dinner party. Will the body be
discovered? Director Alfred Hitchcock, fascinated by the possibilities
of the long-take style, decided to shoot this story as though it were
happening in one long, uninterrupted shot. Since the camera can only
hold one 10-minute reel at a time, Hitchcock had to be creative when
it came time to change reels, disguising the switches as the camera
passed behind someone's back or moved behind a lamp. In later years
Hitchcock wrote off the approach as misguided, and Rope may not
be one of Hitchcock's top movies, but it's still a nail-biter. They
don't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing. James Stewart, as
a suspicious professor, marks his first starring role for Hitchcock, a
collaboration that would lead to the masterpieces Rear Window
and Vertigo. --Robert
Horton
