Alfred Hitchcock was a lover of the dark and the perverse hidden beneath smiles and complacency and in his relatively sparse ROPE, perversity runs amok and at times seems ready to burst itself at the seams. Based on the Leopold-Loeb murders, this is a pretty simple premise with no shock tactics, no surprise ending, but it's all mounting tension.
John Dall and Farley Granger play college students Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan -- lovers even though it's all implicit -- who kick the first scene strangling another college mate, played by Dick Hogan. The instrument they use is the title of the film and will make its appearance on more than one occasion which will at one point send poor Morgan over the edge as he is consumed with guilt and fear. Nevertheless, they have planned a dinner party over a trunk holding Hogan's body, and as the guests arrive, they begin an increasingly dark game of cat and mouse and at one point it seems they actually want to be discovered, but it's all a ruse. Shaw, the Machiavellian of the piece, admires writer and thinker Rupert Cadell played by James Stewart and has materialized Cadell's bleak thoughts by committing an act of murder. What he doesn't know is that Cadell will force them not only to confess to the murder, but to surrender to justice.
ROPE is an interesting film in the way it treats its homosexual subtext. Hayes Code aside, you don't have to see an actual physical contact to know that Shaw and Morgan are lovers and that Dall is clearly the dominant male to Morgan's almost effeminate, weaker, submissive male. There also seems to be some unexplored subtext involving the blind admiration Shaw feels for Cadell, who's wife is never mentioned and who's books told about the 'darkness' of the world. This is not implying Cadell is also homosexual, but the message is certainly clear due to the fact the script had it that Cadell had had a fling with one of the students. Why else would Shaw talk to Cadell with puppy dog eyes, and go to such lengths to impress him? At a time when being gay was unspoken of finding each other in itself was anything less than a miracle, especially if this someone had some deep thoughts which were mutual. Natural for Shaw to want to catch his eye, win Cadell's approval, not knowing he had twisted his work and made it ugly.
Technically, again, the Director proved he knew his "ropes" in terms of how he wanted us to see his picture. The suspense he creates doesn't lie in will the killer be revealed -- had he not included the opening shot of David's murder we might wonder if they actually had done the deed or were merely trying to shock their guests -- but how long will it take for their murder to be revealed. Long takes make us see the trunk at all times, never forgetting that despite the jokes and witty banter about astrology, there is a corpse waiting to be found. Along the way, Hitchcock allows his actors to talk about murder and play with the "where is David" motif until it's certain something must happen, and then, finally, it does, in the form of Jimmy Stewart's deft handling of the scene in which he unmasks the boys. Suspenseful, funny, and ultimately tragic: this sums up the experience of watching ROPE.
John Dall and Farley Granger play college students Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan -- lovers even though it's all implicit -- who kick the first scene strangling another college mate, played by Dick Hogan. The instrument they use is the title of the film and will make its appearance on more than one occasion which will at one point send poor Morgan over the edge as he is consumed with guilt and fear. Nevertheless, they have planned a dinner party over a trunk holding Hogan's body, and as the guests arrive, they begin an increasingly dark game of cat and mouse and at one point it seems they actually want to be discovered, but it's all a ruse. Shaw, the Machiavellian of the piece, admires writer and thinker Rupert Cadell played by James Stewart and has materialized Cadell's bleak thoughts by committing an act of murder. What he doesn't know is that Cadell will force them not only to confess to the murder, but to surrender to justice.
ROPE is an interesting film in the way it treats its homosexual subtext. Hayes Code aside, you don't have to see an actual physical contact to know that Shaw and Morgan are lovers and that Dall is clearly the dominant male to Morgan's almost effeminate, weaker, submissive male. There also seems to be some unexplored subtext involving the blind admiration Shaw feels for Cadell, who's wife is never mentioned and who's books told about the 'darkness' of the world. This is not implying Cadell is also homosexual, but the message is certainly clear due to the fact the script had it that Cadell had had a fling with one of the students. Why else would Shaw talk to Cadell with puppy dog eyes, and go to such lengths to impress him? At a time when being gay was unspoken of finding each other in itself was anything less than a miracle, especially if this someone had some deep thoughts which were mutual. Natural for Shaw to want to catch his eye, win Cadell's approval, not knowing he had twisted his work and made it ugly.
Technically, again, the Director proved he knew his "ropes" in terms of how he wanted us to see his picture. The suspense he creates doesn't lie in will the killer be revealed -- had he not included the opening shot of David's murder we might wonder if they actually had done the deed or were merely trying to shock their guests -- but how long will it take for their murder to be revealed. Long takes make us see the trunk at all times, never forgetting that despite the jokes and witty banter about astrology, there is a corpse waiting to be found. Along the way, Hitchcock allows his actors to talk about murder and play with the "where is David" motif until it's certain something must happen, and then, finally, it does, in the form of Jimmy Stewart's deft handling of the scene in which he unmasks the boys. Suspenseful, funny, and ultimately tragic: this sums up the experience of watching ROPE.