- Director Cameo: [Alfred Hitchcock] His profile appears on a neon sign visible through the apartment window approximately 55 minutes into the movie. The neon sign advertises "Reduco," the same fictional weight-loss product that Hitchcock advertised in his famous newspaper ad cameo in Lifeboat (1944). Some sources indicate that he also appears walking down the street during the opening credits.
- Story was very loosely based on the real-life murder committed by University of Chicago students Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, which was also the (fictionalized) subject of Compulsion (1959) and Swoon (1992).
- The film was shot in ten takes, ranging from four-and-a-half to just over ten minutes (the maximum amount of film that a camera magazine or projector reel could hold) duration. At the end of the takes, the film alternates between having the camera zoom into a dark object, totally blacking out the lens/screen, and making a conventional cut. However, the second edit, ostensibly one of the conventional ones, was clearly staged and shot to block the camera, but the all-black frames were left out of the final print. Most of the props, and even some of the apartment set's walls, were on casters and the crew had to wheel them out of the way and back into position as the camera moved around the set.
- Alfred Hitchcock's inspiration for the long takes came from a BBC Television broadcast of "Rope" in 1939. The producer, Dallas Bower, decided on the technique in order to keep the murder chest constantly in shot.
- Although the film lasts 80 minutes and is supposed to be in "real time", the time frame it covers is actually longer - a little more than 100 minutes. This is accomplished by speeding up the action: the formal dinner lasts only 20 minutes, the sun sets too quickly and so on. The September 2002 issue of Scientific American contains a complete analysis of this technique (and the effect it has on the viewers, who actually feel as if they watched a 100-minutes movie).
- Contrary to popular belief there are several intentionally visible cuts during the movie: at the beginning of the film from the exterior to the interior of the apartment; when Janet arrives at the party; when Phillip shouts "That's a lie!"; when Mrs. Wilson enters the room to announce the telephone call from David's mother; and when Brandon reaches into his pocket for his gun while Rupert narrates his theory on how the murder was committed.
- When Janet and Mrs. Atwater are discussing their favorite leading men in movies, they bring up Cary Grant, and how brilliant he was in "that new thing with (Ingrid) Bergman." Neither can recall the title, but it's just plain "something" (meaning only one word). This refers to Alfred Hitchcock's earlier movie, Notorious (1946). Grant had also been Hitchcock's first choice for the role of Rupert Cadell.
- During filming, the cast had to avoid tripping on cables that laid over the floor, because of the moving cameras and lighting.
- Screenwriter Arthur Laurents claims that the actress that played the maid used to be treated like one by the other actors, while shooting.
- Screenwriter Arthur Laurents assures that in the original play, the character of Cadell (played by James Stewart) allegedly had an affair with one of the two murderers while in school.
- Alfred Hitchcock only managed to shoot roughly one segment per day. The last four or five segments had to be completely re-shot because Hitchcock wasn't happy with the color of the sunset.
- The film was unavailable for decades because its rights (together with four other pictures of the same period) were bought back by Alfred Hitchcock and left as part of his legacy to his daughter Patricia Hitchcock. They've been known for long as the infamous "5 lost Hitchcocks" amongst film buffs, and were re-released in theatres around 1984 after a 30-year absence. The others are The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), Rear Window (1954), The Trouble with Harry (1955), and Vertigo (1958).
- Alfred Hitchcock's first color film.
- The picture was filmed entirely in-studio (except for the opening credits). The clouds that you see out the window are made out of fiberglass. For the effect of a police siren coming towards the apartment building at the end, Alfred Hitchcock had an ambulance come at full speed, from several blocks away, straight to the Warner Brothers studio, siren blaring all the way. The sounds were picked up by a microphone suspended from the studio gate.
- Alfred Hitchcock made an opening romantic scene in Central Park with Joan Chandler (Janet Walker) and Dick Hogan (David Kentley). The scene was used for the 1948 promotional trailer but deleted in the film.
- Cary Grant was the first choice to play the role of the teacher, Rupert Cadell.
- Montgomery Clift was the original choice to play Brandon Shaw.
- Since the filming times were so long, everybody on the set tried their best to avoid any mistakes. At one point in the movie, the camera dolly ran over and broke a cameraman's foot, but to keep filming, he was gagged and dragged off. Another time, a woman puts her glass down but misses the table. A stagehand had to rush up and catch it before the glass hit the ground. Both parts are used in the final cut.
- The theatrical trailer features footage shot specifically for the advertisement that takes place before the beginning of the movie. David (the victim) sits on a park bench and speaks with Janet before leaving to meet Brandon and Phillip. James Stewart narrates the sequence, noting that's the last time Janet and the audience would see him alive.
- The film was banned in a number of American cities because of the implied homosexuality of Phillip (Farley Granger) and Brandon (John Dall).
- The play, originally entitled "Rope" when it premiered in London, was re-titled "Rope's End" when it went to Broadway. The Broadway play "Rope's End" opened on Sept. 19, 1929 at the Theatre Masque (now called the John Golden Theatre) and ran for 100 performances.
- The apartment set showed up the following year, slightly re-furbished, in the Doris Day movie My Dream Is Yours (1949).
- This was the only movie James Stewart made with Alfred Hitchcock that he did not like. Stewart later admitted he felt he was badly miscast as the investigator.
- Eleven years after being mentioned in Rope (1948) as making an excellent villain, James Mason was finally cast by Alfred Hitchcock as such in North by Northwest (1959).
- The star signs that Mrs Atwater states for the movie actors she discusses are in each case correct: James Mason really was a Taurus, Cary Grant a Capricorn, and Ingrid Bergman a Virgo, just as she says.
>>> WARNING: Here Be Spoilers <<<
Trivia items below here contain information that may give away important plot points. You may not want to read any further if you've not already seen this title.
- SPOILER: The screenwriter Arthur Laurents claimed that originally Hitchcock assured him the movie wouldn't show the murder itself, therefore creating doubt as to whether the two leading characters actually committed murder and whether the trunk had a corpse inside.
- SPOILER: Dick Hogan's cameo as the murder victim, David Kentley, is his last appearance in a film.
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