Rope
1948
***
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Cast: James Stewart, John Dall, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, Douglas Dick, Edith Evanson, Dick Hogan, Joan Chandler
To prove their intellectual superiority, two smart but sociopathic young men murder their classmate and then host a dinner party with the body hidden in the apartment. Alfred Hitchcock's adaptation of Patrick Hamilton's 1929 play is best known for taking place in real-time and being filmed in long continuous shots on a single set. By today's standard, the use of this inventive technique looks clumsy, but it does help to create sustained tension. The film itself is short and modest. The play was inspired by the infamous Leopold and Loeb 1924 murder case.
