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Release Date: 06 March, 2001 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.99 You SAVE: $1.99! Cast: Complete Cast (9 total) |
Rope Reviews
"Nobody commits a murder just for the experiment of committing it, nobody except us."
"Nobody commits a murder just for the experiment of committing it, nobody except us." So begins this film, really a stage play, brought to the screen by Hitchcock. Meet Phillip (ably played by Farley Granger) & Brandon (John Dall), a man who later declares in conversation that "I'd hang all the incompetents and fools anyway. They're far too many in the world." These are our murderers, two spolied prep boys, "men of such intellectual and cultural superiority that they are above the traditional moral concepts." As Brandon explains to his guests over drinks, "Good & evil, right & wrong were invented for the ordinary average man, the inferior man, because he needs them." Mind you (and I'm not giving anything away here, as it takes place in the first few minutes of the film) all this conversation takes place not 10 feet from their victim's body lying dead in a serving chest. That, in a nutshell (so to speak) is what this film is all about. In short, it's a macabre---one (bad) joke---story that just drags you along for an hour or so; as you are begged to wonder what is going to happen. Will the victim's father (one of half a dozen guests at this drinks party) discover his son's body? Will his girlfriend (as she tries to make idle awkward conversation with her former flame, a surprise guest---the victim's best friend)? Other players on hand include Jimmy Stewart as the prep boys' former professor, an aunt of the victim, and a housekeeper---who wanders around opening lots of things, trying to rachet up the suspense of this film. Unfortunately, the ending is not nearly as dramatic as your imagination might suggest. The last 20 minutes thus builds and builds---thanks to Jimmy Stewart really ( who calls the party "peculiar" early on), but also to Mr. Granger's sweating (once Stewart begins badgering him), and then it's over in an uneventful flash. John Dall plays the cool calculating murderer, so along with Granger we get treated to aspects of the typical dual personality of a murderer, but in this film it's just split into two bodies. That and the proximity of the victim's body to all the associated guests are the only interesting things about this play, actually. Unfortunately, making it into a film seems to have hindered it or at least added nothing to it. If you are a huge Hitchcock or Stewart fan (as I am) you might be interested in this film just out of curiosity, so consider renting it perhaps. Others may be better off watching "Vertigo" (for Hitch/Stewart's best teaming), "Strangers on a Train" (for Hitch/Granger's best pairing, or even "Dial M for Murder" (another play brought to the screen by Hitchcock that works much better than this offering). Cheers!
Skepiticism speaks moral
Rope, you can call that it is a great Hitchcock's experiment, or you may call that it is a nice play-like-movie inspired by Leopold & Loeb case.
The most interesting and important character in the movie is a professor Rupert played by James Stewart. His position is like on a borderline. At the first appearance he seems not to believe anything in the world. He doubts and laughs everything, especially common sense. Then he tends to make ordinary people uncomfortable. That makes Brandon believe Rupert is his side, supper human's, as Brandon describes, side.
A theme of this play is a moral. It is very unusual and also effective to show this kind theme through a character like Rupert. Let's say Mr. Skepiticism speaks moral.
I wonder how many people are attracted by such moral story nowadays. People, including myself, are more likely attracted by unhealthy, king and slave relationship between two wealthy, smart and good-looking young men and how they plan and commit the crime, and the shocking end of their relationship (one of them, Loeb, Brandon in the movie, was killed in a prison).
The other thing in the movie fascinates me is music by Poulenc, a French composer. Actually that is the most fascinates me. And I tried to find out what title of the music, that is Perpetual Movement No. 1. I love it. That scene, While Phillip plays the music, he is so afraid of the crime but trys to hide, and Ruppert asks questions and closes to him, lighting on and off, you can see the brilliant tension between the two characters with sensitive music.
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