3/3/18 Rope

Post date: Apr 15, 2018 2:23:29 PM

The 1948 Hitchcock movie was based on a 1929 stage play which was based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case. Beside the grim subject matter, Hitchcock's interest in the movie was the challenge of filming the whole movie in what looks like one take. The viewer has to remember that film cameras at the time could only hold up to fifteen minutes of film in one magazine. That meant every 10 minutes the camera would focus on something black like a jacket for the transactions.

Unfortunately the technique overshadows the story which is pure Hitchcock. Two young men commit a murder in a very cold way. Similar to Bruno Anthony in Strangers on a Train. They find that their simple morality of the situation is not quite correct.

The third main character is also interesting. Rupert Cadell, played by Jimmy Stewart, is a college professor. He taught the two boys at school. He likes shocking people with his favorite party conversation; how murder is good thing. There is an element of Nietzsche where only the elite are allowed to kill. This of course echoes of the Nazis who were coming to power around the time of the original case. Cadell has no concept of actual doing it, he just like the topic as a theory. Unfortunately, the impressionable boys who he taught take this as a call to action. When Cadell is confronted with the crime, he tries to avoid responsibility by saying the boys twisted his word about. This is not true, the boys did exactly what Cadell was idly talking about. In the end, Cadell takes responsibility for his role in the murder.