Review of Rope (1948) by Somnath P — 15 Oct 2008

As with most other Hitchcock movies, murder here is studied. Despite that, "Rope" is a pretty unconventional and experimental film, that cues the audience in, and leaves some of the other characters to figure out what exactly happened.

The result is kind of a reverse mystery film, which proves to be a nice spin. With only about an 80 minute running time, Hitchcock opts to throw slow-building tension out in favor of a quick-paced and talky screenplay, reminiscent of a play.

Brandon and Phillip, two students of a private school, decide to take on a grisly experiment: kill their classmate David they deem "inferior" and then hide the body in an old chest. Feeling that they committed a perfect murder, they go on to test the legitimacy of their crime when they invite the recently strangled young man's friends and family for a party.

..with the chest used as a dining table. As expected, the guests grow worrisome that David hasn't arrived, but it doesn't occur to them what really happened until Rupert (James Stewart), an old teacher whose ideas inspired the crime, starts to catch on.

This movie brings an interesting philosophy to murder, with it's ideas of intellectual superiority being a reasonable excuse, and twistedly brings a casual stance on a human disposing of another human.

It starts to reveal a callousness especially during the scenes when Brandon, the main brain behind the "operation", starts to openly drop hints of his evil-doings, in an unapologetic manner.

Not until Rupert's outlash of the seriousness of murder does the audience get a wake up call. So while perverse in nature, Hitchcock does eventually employ some needed humanity into the fray. Hitchcock also brings forth an interesting style behind the camera, with the movie culminating from basically a one shot take and in one room.

This makes the movie feel more like real life, as if the audience was in the room, peering in. With this in mind, "Rope" can't really be compared to most of Hitch's other films (although "Dial M For Murder" is pretty close) because it is what it is and doesn't try to be overly ambitious or profound.

It may not be the cream of the crop, but in it's own unique way, "Rope" is a minor masterpiece.