James Stewart: A Wonderful Life - Hosted by Johnny Carson

Was Rope really filmed in a single take with no cuts?

Some commentators miss the point of the 10-minute takes, etc.

Although not quite a masterpiece, Rope is a daring exploration of style and substance from the Master of Suspense

Warner Brothers Burbank Studios - 4000 Warner Boulevard, Burbank, California, USA

Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, and Robert Walker in Strangers on a Train (1951)

Grace Kelly and Anthony Dawson in Dial M for Murder (1954)

Doris Day and James Stewart in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren in The Birds (1963)

Ingrid Bergman, Cary Grant, and Claude Rains in Notorious (1946)

Joseph Cotten, Macdonald Carey, and Teresa Wright in Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief (1955)

Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier in Rebecca (1940)

Sean Connery and Tippi Hedren in Marnie (1964)

Cary Grant, Alfred Hitchcock, Eva Marie Saint, and Philip Ober in North by Northwest (1959)

Shirley MacLaine, John Forsythe, and Edmund Gwenn in The Trouble with Harry (1955)

James Stewart, Joan Chandler, and John Dall in Rope (1948)

Do you know, when I was a girl I used to read quite a bit.

We all do strange things in our childhood.

James Stewart and Farley Granger in Rope (1948)

James Stewart, John Dall, and Farley Granger in Rope (1948)

John Dall and Farley Granger in Rope (1948)

James Stewart behind the scenes of "Rope," 1948.

Alfred Hitchcock on the set of "Rope." 1948 Warner Bros.

Alfred Hitchcock on the set of "Rope" with Joan Chandler, 1948.

Alfred Hitchcock on teh set of "Rope" wit J. Stewart. 1948 Warner Bros.

Alfred Hitchcock on the set of "Rope" 1948 Warner Bros.

James Stewart

John Dall

Farley Granger

Hume Cronyn

Patrick Hamilton

Arthur Laurents

Two men try to convince themselves they&apos;ve committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party after strangling a former classmate to death.

Alfred Hitchcock

Rope

Innovation can&apos;t quite make this a masterpiece - but it&apos;s still worth watching

&apos;Rope&apos;, as many reviews here point out, is shot in a &quot;real time&quot; format. The movie lasts 80 minutes and takes place over a period of 80 minutes - with 10 8 minute takes spliced together smartly (such as switching when focused on a back) to give the appearance of one long take. Even current &quot;real time&quot; dramas such as &quot;Nick of Time&quot; or &quot;24&quot; use cuts - and perhaps justifiably.

&quot;Rope&quot; is about two college students - the slimy Brendon Shaw (John Dall) and his friend and sub-texted-gay-partner Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) who murder an old college mate and then, minutes after, host a dinner party to prove their calm, intellectual superiority and their &quot;right&quot; to kill off the lower echelons of society - they believe they are exempt from common morality. Central to this is their smug desire to show off their theory to their old mentor, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is attending the party, and to get him to agree with their theories.

As the movie is essentially confined to one room, and one take, there&apos;s a definite &quot;play&quot; feel to the movie. While this worked wonderful with &quot;12 Angry Men&quot;, the script and character interaction isn&apos;t quite smart enough here to sustain it. There&apos;s a lot of pontificating by Shaw, and some fine retorts by Cadell but there&apos;s a sense of forcedness about it at the same time. Only 3 of the characters are drawn with enough conviction, and it is only Cadell who we can really admire (Granger&apos;s Morgan seems to be too much of a nervous twitching type to add much to the movie). The script does allow us to gape with incredulity at the Nietzsche-esque theories of the &quot;superman&quot; espoused by Shaw, and the gay subtext is amusingly, and cleverly, done but there&apos;s an inevitability about the whole story - we know what will happen, it does, and this creates an ultimate lack of tension (when compared to, for example, Hitchock&apos;s &quot;Vertigo&quot;).

The direction is, as would be expected, smart and - naturally - innovative here. The camera drifts about from character to character, as Hitchock tries his &quot;one cut&quot; approach, and there&apos;s some nice background detail (such as Hitchcock&apos;s flashing neon signs) to show the passage of time/current theme. Overall &quot;Rope&quot; is well worth seeing - it&apos;s not quite a failed experiment, nor a successful one. It&apos;s a &quot;curio&quot; which is worth appreciating for realizing why it was never really emulated since.

Official Trailer

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYmQwOWRhZWMtZGNiOC00OGI5LThkYWUtMGFkOTJlYjQ5MTY0XkEyXkFqcGdeQXRyYW5zY29kZS13b3JrZmxvdw@@._V1_.jpg

Innovation can't quite make this a masterpiece - but it's still worth watching

'Rope', as many reviews here point out, is shot in a "real time" format. The movie lasts 80 minutes and takes place over a period of 80 minutes - with 10 8 minute takes spliced together smartly (such as switching when focused on a back) to give the appearance of one long take. Even current "real time" dramas such as "Nick of Time" or "24" use cuts - and perhaps justifiably.

"Rope" is about two college students - the slimy Brendon Shaw (John Dall) and his friend and sub-texted-gay-partner Phillip Morgan (Farley Granger) who murder an old college mate and then, minutes after, host a dinner party to prove their calm, intellectual superiority and their "right" to kill off the lower echelons of society - they believe they are exempt from common morality. Central to this is their smug desire to show off their theory to their old mentor, Rupert Cadell (James Stewart), who is attending the party, and to get him to agree with their theories.

As the movie is essentially confined to one room, and one take, there's a definite "play" feel to the movie. While this worked wonderful with "12 Angry Men", the script and character interaction isn't quite smart enough here to sustain it. There's a lot of pontificating by Shaw, and some fine retorts by Cadell but there's a sense of forcedness about it at the same time. Only 3 of the characters are drawn with enough conviction, and it is only Cadell who we can really admire (Granger's Morgan seems to be too much of a nervous twitching type to add much to the movie). The script does allow us to gape with incredulity at the Nietzsche-esque theories of the "superman" espoused by Shaw, and the gay subtext is amusingly, and cleverly, done but there's an inevitability about the whole story - we know what will happen, it does, and this creates an ultimate lack of tension (when compared to, for example, Hitchock's "Vertigo").

The direction is, as would be expected, smart and - naturally - innovative here. The camera drifts about from character to character, as Hitchock tries his "one cut" approach, and there's some nice background detail (such as Hitchcock's flashing neon signs) to show the passage of time/current theme. Overall "Rope" is well worth seeing - it's not quite a failed experiment, nor a successful one. It's a "curio" which is worth appreciating for realizing why it was never really emulated since.

Two men try to convince themselves they've committed the perfect murder by hosting a dinner party after strangling a former classmate to death.

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Rope

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