Rope Writers: Patrick Hamilton (play), Arthur Laurents Composer: Leo F. Forbstein Director of Photography: Joseph A. Valentine Cast: Joan Chandler Janet Constance Collier Mrs. Atwater John Dall Brandon Douglas Dick Kenneth Edith Evanson Mrs. Wilson Farley Granger Philip Cedric Hardwicke Mr. Kentley Dick Hogan David Kentley James Stewart Rupert Cadell

     That Rope should be Hitchcock's first movie as a producer is not surprising, for Hitchcock needed a story with a single set for the challenge he set himself -- an experiment in economy in ten-minute takes. The result is an intriguing film that contradicts the basic nature of moving pictures itself, which is of course the cut: without the arrangement of bits of film, without crucial inserts and a prevailing viewpoint, Rope is afflicted with an almost fatal ennui. It is a prime example, in other words, of precisely what Hitchcock condemned in so many movies -- it's merely "pictures of people talking."
     Rope is the only commercial film ever planned entirely in ten-minute takes; actually, some in this film are several minutes shorter. Shots in movies ordinarily last from about five to fifteen seconds, with writers, directors, and editors taking advantage of the cut to vary viewpoint, maintain interest, change setting, and create tension. But in this film Hitchcock did not wish to create different setups. Almost every shot lasts ten minutes, the length of time a "magazine" of film can be exposed in the camera; it was very likely the boldest technical experiment ever attempted -- and it is best not repeated. "I undertook [it] as a stunt," Hitchcock said. "That's the only way I can describe it. I got this crazy idea to do it in a single shot. It was quite nonsensical because I was breaking my own theories on the importance of cutting and montage."
     As the enormous Technicolor camera was moved sinously from living room to foyer to dining room to kitchen door and back again, walls were whisked silently up into the studio flies, grips stood just off-camera removing and redepositing chairs and accessories, and actors had marked points on the floor to indicate their precise positions for each moment of dialogue. At the end of a ten-minute take, the camera was moved close to the back of a man's jacket, or to a tabletop or other object in order to block out the action; the reel was changed and the next long take resumed with the same dark close-up. If a mistake happened (and there were many), the entire complicated take had to recommence. Camera movements and positions all had to be rigorously prearranged down to every detail.
     Rope follows closely Hamilton's play, which was based on the Leopold/Loeb case, one of the most infamous and bizarre crimes in American history. Here, all the action occurs in a New York penthouse apartment of two young friends, Philip and Brandon, who murder a friend; this they do as an experiment in thrill-seeking and as the logical outcome of an intellectual thesis with which they're intrigued -- that murder is the privilege of an člite few. They then hide the corpse in a living room chest, from whose lid they calmly serve a buffet dinner to guests -- among them the murdered man's father, aunt, and fiancče and their former college professor. To his horror, the truth is gradually discovered by the professor whose ideas were taken to an extreme by his students.