Rope 1948

     This movie is adapted from a play written by Patrick Hamilton in 1929.  Brandon and Philip are two young men who share a New York City apartment.  They consider themselves intellectually superior to their friend David Kentley.  As a consequence of their feelings they decide to murder him??  Their only reason is to satisfy a sadistic urge and stoke their intellectual vanity.  Together they strangle David with a rope and place 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 school teacher Rupert.  It was from Rupert that they they mistakenly took their ideas??  As Brandon becomes increasingly more daring, Rupert begins to suspect something is going on??

     Sir Alfred Hitchcock made a very different Rupert Cadell for this movie.  In the play, Rupert is 29 years old and he had an affair with one of his students.  Rupert is the teacher Wyndham Brandon and Charles Granillo in the play.  In the movie, Rupert was the previous teacher of Brandon Shaw, Philip Morgan, Kenneth Lawrence and David Kentley.  In the movie, Rupert looks like he is at least in his mid-forties, he is currently a publisher and he has a romantic relationship with Mrs. Wilson.  He has plans of marrying her in the future.  In the play, there is no Mrs. Wilson.  Instead of Mrs. Wilson, there is a 35-year-old French servant named Mr. Sabot.  3* (This movie is OK)

80 min, Crime directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Hume Cronyn, Arthur Laurents, Ben Hecht with Dick Hogan, John Dall, Farley Granger, Edith Evanson, Douglas Dick, Joan Chandler, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, James Stewart.  

Note:  Imdb 8* out of 10* with 130,697 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes 94% with 49 critic reviews 90% audience score with 25,000+ audience scores, Metacritic 73 out of 100 with 10 critic reviews, 8.5 out of 10 with 40 user scores, Roger Ebert 2*, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 1607 reviews, Letterboxd 4* out of 5* with 645 fans.

Special Note:  There was an actual case like this known as the infamous Loeb-Leopold case of 1924!!  Since the filming times were so long, everyone 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 put her glass down but she misses the table.  A stagehand had to rush up and catch it before the glass hit the ground.  Both scenes are used in the final cut.  This is Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s first color movie.

Mistakes:  Philip's piano playing does not match the music playing.  When Phillip and Brandon put David in the chest, the rope is clearly around David's neck and completely inside the box.  But in a few minutes, Phillip finds the rope hanging very far and outside the box?  Philip cuts his hand on glass but moments later there’s no blood or wound visible?  During the party, the chest that houses David is tall enough to serve food from.  However, by the end as Rupert crosses to the chair next to it, the chest is only as tall as Rupert's knees.