Review of Rope (1948) by Garry J — 24 May 2009

What can I say about Hitchcock that hasn't already been said, written and videotaped in a billion documentaries, books and lectures?

He was bald.

Moving on, Rope is an example of a tightly controlled, suspenseful yet simple thriller. The whole movie takes place in one room, with one camera and all the cuts are disguised to make it look like one long take. At the time of its release critics hated it precisely because of this reason. This 'experimentation' was frowned upon because in 1948 just rolling up your sleeves was considered anarchy.

But of course, today everyone's falling tit over arse to proclaim how inventive and clever this film was. Well obviously, who's going to badmouth Hitchcock? They could discover a home video of him filming the cat taking napping and it would be released in theatres as 'Catnap' - "the thriller Hitch didn't want the world to see".

Anyway, the movie's a nice little viewing experience. Simple and with good acting to back it up, you really feel the tension and above all the morbidity of the two men who have the audacity to shove a fresh corpse into a chest and have a party around it. Nice guys. But Hitch was always good at black humour. The Trouble With Harry is one example.

I noticed a homoerotic undercurrent throughout the movie and after a bit of googling, and then searching for information through search engines, I found some interesting fags, I mean, facts.

Apparently the writer and something like 4 or 5 other people involved were homosexual and I guess they found a way to inject that into the movie and still get it pass the censors. Nice job.

Let this movie remind everyone that even Alfred Hitchcock's table scraps, his playful experimentation, kicks way more ass than your sorry little 2 minutes drunken video on Youtube ever will.