Rope (1948) Queer Film A-

Filmed in 8 x 10-minute takes.

DIRECTOR: Alfred Hitchcock

Produced by Alfred Hitchcock

Arthur Laurents’s screenplay is based on a story by Hume Cronyn based on Patrick Hamilton’s 1929 play, which, in turn, was based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb case from 1924.

Cinematography: Joseph Valentine and William Skall

Edited by: William H. Ziegler

Original Score: David Buttolph

Studio: Transatlantic Pictures (Hitchcock and Sidney Bernstein)

Distributed by: Warner Bros.

Starring: Farley Granger, John Dall, James Stewart, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, Joan Chandler

HITCHCOCK’S FIRST FILM IN COLOR.

Hitchcock’s famous experiment feels like an idea that could have been sketched on a napkin over coffee with Eisenstein. Two masters of cinema, having reinvented the medium more than once, understood that film is a marriage of two complementary forces:

Mise‑en‑scène — production design, costume, camera placement and movement, and the choreography of actors within the frame.

Editing — the sculpting of that mise‑en‑scène into meaning.

But Hitchcock wanted to know: What happens if you remove editing altogether? What if a film were built almost entirely from mise‑en‑scène—no montage, no rhythmic cutting, just the camera gliding through space like an omniscient guest at a party? Would it feel like a filmed stage play? A voyeur with a movie camera sitting in the audience?

There was, of course, a technical problem: a reel of film only lasted ten minutes. Hitchcock solved this by gliding the camera into the back of an actor’s jacket or an inanimate object—furniture, a dark corner—allowing for a hidden cut and a fresh reel. The illusion of a single, continuous take was preserved.

Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s play by actor‑writer Hume Cronyn, with a screenplay by gay writer Arthur Laurents, the story draws on the infamous Leopold and Loeb case of the early 1920s. Farley Granger and John Dall, both queer actors, are perfect as Phillip Morgan and Brandon Shaw, two young aesthetes—read: a homosexual couple—who strangle a former prep‑school classmate in their Manhattan penthouse. They do it as an intellectual exercise, a Nietzschean demonstration of superiority. After hiding the body in a large antique chest, they host a dinner party, using the chest as the buffet table. The Manhattan skyline glows behind them like a silent accomplice.

The guests, blissfully unaware, include the victim’s father (Sir Cedric Hardwicke) and aunt (Constance Collier). His mother is home with a cold. Also present are David’s fiancée (Joan Chandler) and her former lover (Douglas Dick), who was once David’s closest friend. The boys’ inspiration for the murder comes from their prep‑school housemaster, publisher Rupert Cadell—played by James Stewart, excellent in a role that darkens his usual persona. Rupert once discussed Nietzsche’s Superman with them, which they interpreted as approval. Brandon, in particular, believes Rupert will admire their “work of art.” The film strongly hints that Rupert was also their former lover.

The result is an astonishing achievement—one of Hitchcock’s most daring films. And yet, for all its brilliance, you can feel the constraint: half the language of cinema is off‑limits. Hitchcock is working with only the right (spatial) side of his brain, denying himself the left (temporal) side that montage provides. The tension between those two impulses—freedom and restriction—gives Rope its strange, hypnotic power.

Cameo one: 0:01:51: Just after Hitchcock’s credit towards the end of the opening sequence, walking alongside a woman.

Cameo two: 0:55:00 Through the window, we see a red flashing neon sign of his trademark profile

STREAMING: Amazon Prime, Apple TV+, and YouTube

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