Rope
 | 1948Starring: Joan Chandler, Constance Collier, John Dall, Douglas Dick, Edith Evanson Universal Studios, 1948, VHS Tape Customer Rating: 129 reviews Recommend This product is currently not available and cannot be purchased. It means that we have no merchant offers for this product at the moment or it was discontinued by the manufacturer. |
|---|
An experimental film masquerading as a standard Hollywood thriller. The plot of Rope is simple and based on a successful stage play: two young men (John Dall and Farley Granger) commit murder, more or less as an intellectual exercise. They hide the body in their large apartment, then throw a dinner party. Will the body be discovered? Director Alfred Hitchcock, fascinated by the possibilities of the long-take style, decided to shoot this story as though it were happening in one long, uninterrupted shot. Since the camera can only hold one 10-minute reel at a time, Hitchcock had to be creative when it came time to change reels, disguising the switches as the camera passed behind someone's back or moved behind a lamp. In later years Hitchcock wrote off the approach as misguided, and Rope may not be one of Hitchcock's top movies, but it's still a nail-biter. They don't call him the Master of Suspense for nothing. James Stewart, as a suspicious professor, marks his first starring role for Hitchcock, a collaboration that would lead to the masterpieces Rear Window and Vertigo. — Robert Horton
Title: Rope (1948)
Sales Rank: 28707 in VHS
Actor: Joan Chandler, Constance Collier, John Dall, Douglas Dick, Edith Evanson
Studio: Universal Studios, 1999-08-03, Theatrical Release: 1948-08-28
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language)
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Running Time: 81 minutes
Package Dimensions: 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches, 0.38 pounds
- Great print of a great movie
- This is one of Hitchock's best films - they are all great, but this one and "Rear Window" are my favourites. The technical transfer of this film to DVD is solid; the storyline is incredible, given the time in which this film was produced.
There's quite a bit more "story" to the story, in the relationship between the two main characters… More reviews
- A different kind of Hitchcock
- 3.5 stars. A film inspired by the true crime case of Leopold and Loeb, Hitchcock tried to do a few different things with this film and I'm not too sure it worked. The decision to shoot in eight ten minute long sequences might have sounded appealing, but to me it came off a bit too gimmicky. The film is also a little slow in getting started… More reviews
- Ker-flop!
- The rest of the reviewers can tell you what the film was about..this one will only ask why it was ever made!
Terrible ideas usually beget terrible 'executions'....do NOT waste your precious time on earth trying to sit through this turkey. … More reviews
- The More You Watch, the Tighter the Suspense Grows
- Brandon (John Dall) and Phillip (Farley Granger) feel they are superior to their friends in every way. As such, they think they can plan the perfect murder and get away with it. Their victim is David Kentley (Dick Hogan). And to prove just how superior they are, they invite his family and friends over for… More reviews
- An overlooked masterpiece
- I was a kid when I first saw ROPE, some 15 years ago. I vividly remembered that scene of the maid cleaning up after the party - the camera nailed down to one spot; just the one view of the maid clearing-off the table/chest, unaware of its ghastly contents. You watch her up close as she picks up plates from atop the chest and… More reviews
